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AUTHOR: 


ARDIGO, 


TITLE: 


INCONSISTENT 
PRELIMINARY.. 


PLA  CE : 


CAMBRIDGE,  ENG 


DA  TE : 


1910 


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146 

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Ardigi,  Roberiv  i«28-^1920^ 

An  inconsistent  preliminary  objeotlon  against 
positiviftn;  a  translation  from  the  Italian  by^ 
Emilio  Gavirati.   Cambridge,  Eng,,  Heffer,1910« 

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Robert    Ardi 


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Professor  of  the  History  of  Philosophy 
in    the     University^    of     Padua     (Italy) 


An   Inconsistent   Preliminary 
Objection  Against  Positivism 


A   Translation   from   the   Italian 


BY 


EiMILlO    GAVIRATI. 


■^J 


W.    HEFFER    &    SONS     LIMITED, 
CAMBRIDGE,    ENGLAND. 

1910. 


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Robert    Aidi 


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Professor  of  the  History  of  Philosophy 
in    the    University)    of    Padua     { Italy) 


An   Inconsistent    Preliminary 
Objection  Against  Positivism 


A       i  RANSLATION     FROM     THi::     i'lAiJAN 


BY 


EMILIO    GAVIRATl 


W.    HEFFER    &    SONS     LIMITED, 

CAMBRIDvIE,     EN'GLAN  D. 

1910. 


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PREFACE   BY  THE   TRANSLATOR. 


Robert  Ardigo,  the  author  of  the  present  pamphlet  and 
the  leader  in  Italian  Positivism,  ^vas  born  on  the  28th  of 
January,  1828,  at  Castel  Didone,  a  village  in  the  province  of 
Cremona  in  the  Northern  part  of  Italy.  Educated  very 
religiously  by  his  mother,  the  wife  of  an  engineer,  he  undertook 
,  in  1845  his  theological  studies,  to  take  then,  with  deep  religious 
fervour,  holy  orders  in  1851.  In  the  course  of  the  successive 
twenty  years  however,  his  creed  and  metaphysical  opinions 
having  been  superseded  by  the  conclusion  to  which  he  came 
in  consequence  of  his  profound  studies  in  Natural  Science 
and  through  his  Psycological  Researches,  he  found  himself 
obliged  to  divest  himself  of  his  sacerdotal  cloth.  He  was  at 
that  time  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  the  Lyceum  of  Mantua, 
where  he  remained  till  1881,  wiien  he  was  appointed  to  teach 
the  History  of  Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Padua.  He 
retired  in  1908,  after  having  published  ten  volumes  of  Philo- 
sophical Works  which  represent  to  my  mind  the  most  glorious 
and  successful  attempt  that  has  ever  been  performed  by  Positive 
Science  to  give  a  really  satisfactory  answer  at  last  to  the  most 
abstruse  philosophical  problems  that  have  ever  puzzled  the 
most  acute  minds  of  the  superior  representatives  of  mankind. 

The  present  pamphlet  is  one  of  Ardigo's  minor  works  and 
is  contained  in  the  second  part  of  the  tenth  volume  of  his 
Philosophical  Works.  The  reading  of  it  is  of  the  greatest 
interest,  since  in  it  are  exhibited  the  answers  (to  my  mind 
irrefutable)  to  the  criticisms  commonly  raised  against  Italian 
Positivism,  especially  by  those  who  rely  on  Bergson's  and 
Boutroux's  positions,  which  are  nowadays  so  much  the  fashion. 

My  dream  is  to  find  an  English  reader  of  the  present  work 
who  might  help  me  to  translate  and  to  publish  one  of  the  main 
works  of  my  great  Master :  for  instance,  the  book  "  On  Truth,'* 
or  that  "  On  the  Unity  of  Mind,"  or  that  "  On  Reason:' 


f\  r 


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Xot  being  familiar  with  the  English  language  in  general, 
and  the  philosophical  English  language  in  particular,  I  trust 
that  this  confession  of  mine  and  my  admiration  for  a  man  whom 
v/  I  consider  as  the  Saint  George  of  the  Metaphysical  dragon  may 
be  a  sufficient  reason  for  my  being  pardoned  for  all  the  errors  I 
liave  committed  in  attempting  to  make  known  to  English 
readers  an  essay  written  by  a  man  gifted  with  extraordinary 
intellectual  power. 

I  take  advantage  of  this  occasion  to  express  my  best  thanks 
to  Professor  Ardigo  ;  whogave  me  leave  to  publish  my  transla- 
tion :  to  Signori  Rag;  Luigi  Delia  Torre  and  Ing.  Eugenio 
Rignano,  who  have  generously  accepted  to  bear  the  prmtmg 
expenses  of  my  translation,  and  to  Mrs.  Giulia  Bosio,  who  has 
corrected  many  of  my  errors. 

EMILIO    GAVIRATI. 


Via  Felice  Bellotti  13, 
Milan,  Italy. 


%»     I 


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I. 

On  behalf  of  what  is  called  Modern  Idealism,  it  is  said  by 
some  Italian  opponents  (^)  that  m  Positivism  there  is  to  be 
found  this  fundamental  fault ;  namely,  that  according  to  the 
method  which  the  positivist  has  prescribed  to  himself,  the 
Subject  ought,  in  his  system,  to  become  ati  Object  which 
cannot  have,  therefore,  any  of  the  characteristics  belonging 
to  subjectiveness. 

Then,  in  order  to  illustrate  the  same  prejudication  they 
accompany  its  statement  with  a  multitude  of  criticisms  of 
which  the  most  frequently  used  are  the  following  : 

"  (a)  Positivism  professes  the  Fact  to  be  the  sole  criterion 
of  Truth  without  however,  being  able  to  premise  any  theory 
of  Knowledge,  which  might  be  the  justification  both  of  this 
principle  and  of  the  value  assigned  to  the  Fact  itself  :  Positivism 
assumes  the  Fact  in  its  objective  meaning  so  that  in  tlie  first 
place.  Positivism  is  put  in  the  position  of  being  unable  to 
recognize  both  the  distinctive  peculiarity  of  the  Psychical  Fact 
C'  psichicitd'')  and  the  impossibility  of  drawing  it  out  of 
introspection.  In  the  second  place,  Positivism  is  compelled 
to  consider  the  Psychical  Fact  as  being  a  simple  aggregate  of 
atoms  which  are  combined  in  that  very  manner  in  which 
the  data  belonging  to  Objectiveness  combine. 

(b)  Positivism  does  not  admit : 

Firstly:  That  psychical  facts  are  forms  (or  'values  '  as  they 
are  accustomed  to  call  them)  emerging  always  ex  novo  and  quite 
different  from  their  own  compounding  elements,  and  consequently 
not  to  be  derived  from  them  ;  so  that  in  psychical  facts  only  their 
quality  is  of  importance  and  their  quality  is  only  apt  to  be  set 
in  relief,  because  quantity  does  not  belong  to  them  and  is  only 
pertaining  to  the  physical  facts. 

Secondly:  That  the  characteristic  of  Psyche  is  the  unity 
into  which  its  present  and  past  are  melted  ;  a  unity  which  is  in 
contrast  to  that  multiplicity  which  is  peculiar  only  to  the 
external  world. 


(1)  I  do  not  mention  names  because  my  only  object  is  to  combat 
what  I  consider  to  be  an  error,  and  also  in  order  that  I  may  be  in  a  better 
position  to  formulate  my  own  thought  more  clearly  and  more  fully. 


i 


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Thirdly  :  That  two  fundamental  laws  rule  the  Psyche  ;  the 
Law  of  Abbreviation  and  the  Law    of   the    Heterogeneity   of 

Purposes. 

(c)  The  Positivist,  in  attributing  to  the  psychical  datum  no 
more  than  Representativeness  does  not  perceive  that  such  a 
quality  as  this  is  always  accompanied  by  Sentiment  and  \\  ill, 
both  of  which  are  the  reason  of  the  psychical  phenomenism  in 
general  and  of  the  moral  one  in  particular.  The  Positivist 
therefore,  cannot  admit  that  free  spontaneity  aiming  at  an  end 
which  is  pertinent  to  the  psychical  phenomenism  :  in  fact  he 
starts  with  the  inadmissible  preconception  that  the  above 
mentioned  psychical   phenomenism   is  entirely  dependent  upon 

the  physical  one." 

Those  who  are  acquainted  with  my  writings,  would  not 
only  immediately  perceive  that  the  objection  and  criticisms 
against  Positivism  formulated  above  have  no  foundation 
whatever  to  support  them,  but  they  would  also  see  that 
the  opponents  of  Positivism  (either  because  they  do  not 
know,  or  because  they  take  no  notice  of  my  writings)  while 
thev  are  slandering  Positivism,  as  it  is  understood  in  Italy,  come 
also  to  attribute  entirely  to  foreigners  those  scientific  doctrines 
that  were  taught  in  our  own  country,  not  only  before  they  were 
taught  abroad  but  better  and  more  fundamentally  and  with 
greater  resolution. 

At  any  rate  it  will  not  be  a  useless  thing  to  summarize 
from  my  above  mentioned  writings  the  points  which  concern 
this  question,  showing,  besides  the  falsity  of  such  accusations 
that  the  arguments  brought  agai-nst  Positivism  are  based  in 
the  main  upon  the  double  equivocation  of  setting  forth  as 
1  v.Mtivism,  no  other  thing  than  a  mere  rough  undervalued 
Materialism  ;  and  of  giving  on  the  other  hand,  as  a  Nem 
Idealism  (that  is  to  say  the  last  result  of  Science)  that  which, 
however  carefully  disguised,  is  after  all  analysis  nothing  else 
than  the  very  same  old  metaphysical  Spiritualism.  The 
quotations  from  my  works  (from  the  very  first  ones)  that  will 
have  to  be  made  in  the  course  of  my  exposition,  may  also  serve 
to  demonstrate  the  insipience  of  that  member  of  the  Congress  of 
Parma,  who  having  perhaps  dreamt  of  a  recent  new  phase  of 
mv  thought,  spoke  about  it  at  that  meeting.     {') " 


(•)  See  "  Bollettino  della  Societa  FilosofiLa  lialiana,"  Xo.  3-4,  p.  16. 


I     > 


I 


They  say:  ''Positivism  professes  that  the  Fact  must  be  the 
sole  criterion  of  Truth  ;  unthout,  hoii^evcr,  having  ever  been  able  to 
premise  any  Theory  of  Knoidcdge,  which  might  be  the  justification 
both  of  this  principle  and  of  the  value  assigned  to  the  Fact  itself. 
Positivism  assumes  the  Fact  in  its  objective  meaning,  so  that  in  the 
first  place  Positivism  is  put  in  the  position  of  being  unable  to 
recognize,  both  the  distinguishing  peculiarity  of  the  Psychical 
Fact  and  the  impossibility  of  draiving  it  out  from  the  introspection; 
and  in  the  second  place,  Positivism  is  compelled  to  consider  the 
Psychical  Fact  as  being  a  simple  aggregate  of  atoms  ivhich  might 
he  combined  in  the  very  same  ivay  as  the  data  that  belong  to 
objectivenessy 

All  this  may  be  rightly  said  of  Materialism  but  not  of 
Positivism,  which  is  an  entirely  different  thing,  as  I  am  about 
to  prove. 

(a)  The  Positivist  does  admit  the  distinctive  peculiarity  of 
the  Psychical  Fact  and  the  impossibility  of  knowing  it  without 
introspection. 

As  far  back  as  1870  I  have  written  {')  that  "when  con- 
sidered m  their  own  peculiarity,  psychical  ])henomena  are 
neither  fibres,  nor  fluids,  nor  motions,  nor  any  other  form 
whatsoever  of  matter  considered  as  such."  And  in  that  very 
book  of  mine,  and  before  one  might  read  in  foreign  books,  and 
then  trumpet  about  as  a  novelty,  that  which  was  already  printed 
therein  (^)  I  added :  "  If  a  sound,  for  instance,  taken  as  a  sound,  is 
essentially  a  thought  and  not  a  reality  independent  from  our 
mind,  the  same  may  also  be  said  not  only  of  extension,  which 
also  is  essentially  a  thought,  but  even  of  every  other  idea  we 
attach  to  the  conception  of  matter.  So  that  he  who  compares 
a  sound  (when  apprehended  as  a  psychical  fact)  w^ith  the 
materiality  either  of  the  human  body  or  of  the  organ  of  hearing, 
or  of  the  brain,  he  does  nothing  else  in  the  end  but  compare  two 
thoughts  one  with  the  other." 

(6)  Very  well,  and  better  than  the  Idealists  had  ever  been 
able  to  do,  the  Positivist  did  put  together  a  Theory  of  Know- 
ledge ;  a  theory  w^hich,  as  is  natural,  justifies  to  the  full  his  own 
fundamental  principle. 


(')  In  the  book  •'  Psychology  as  a  Positive  Science."      Phil.  Works,  Vol.  I., 
p.  172. 

C)  p-  233- 


8 


^    J     J 


On  the  Theory  of  Knowledge,  besides  the  quotations  that 
continually  are  to  be  found  in  my  publications,  I  have  written 
the  rather  voluminous  books  on  (')  "  Trnt/z,"  (^)  ''Reason,'* 
{^)  "  On  The  Unity  of  Mind,"  and  have  set  forth  in  my  paper 
(*)  on  ''The  Otiadruple  Problem  of  the  Theory  of  Knoivledge''  a 
systematic  and  complete  frame  of  the  doctrines  particularly 
treated  in  those  books.  In  which  books  and)  papers  I  never  fail 
to  point  out  how  my  Theory  of  Knowledge  (not  to  say  any  more) 
fills  one  of  the  usual  and  very  lamentable  and  disastrous  gaps  left 
empty  by  all  the  Idealists  of  the  present  and  of  the  past ;  gaps 
which  my  theory  fills,  not  only  by  giving  the  reason  of  the 
objective  value  of  the  Heterosynthesis  (by  means  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  "  experiment  "  (^),  but  also  by  scientifically 
reinstating  for  this  purpose,  the  implicit  concept  of  "  cause  "  (^). 

How  far  the  Theory  of  Knowledge  of  Positivism  does 
overcome  that  of  the  opponents  who  are  charging  us  with  being 
unable  to  build  it,  will  also  appear  from  what  I  am  going  to 
set  forth  afterwards. 

(c)  The  Positivist  assumes  the  Fact  not  only  as  objective 
but  also  as  subjective,  and  justifies  and  determines  its  value 
both  as  internal  and  as  external  fact. 

The  assertion  on  the  part  of  Positivism  of  the  existence 
and  value  of  the  Psychical  Fact  and  of  its  peculiarity  and 
importance,  has  been  stated  and  demonstrated  by  a  hundred 
passages  of  my  books  ;  for  instance  by  this  one  taken  by 
chance  (^)  "A  sensation  consists  in  the  consciousness  of 
havin^r  it ;  therefore  in  the  absolutelv  necessarv  affirmation  of 
its  own  being  ;  affirmation  that  is  necessary  for  itself  and 
independently  from  anything  else.  When  several  contemporary 
or  successive  sensations  are  given,  the  affirmation  concerns  their 


(')  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  V. 

(2;  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  VI. 

(3)  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  VII. 

(*)  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  X.,  pp.  203-240. 

(^)  Already  stated  in  the  book  on  "  Psychology  as  a  Positive  Science  "  (Vol.  I. 
of  Phil.  Works,  p.  407),  diffusely  examined  in  the  book  on  "  The  Psychological 
Fact  of  Perception  "  (Vol.  IV.  of  the  Phil.  Works).  Continually  recalled  in  the 
next  writings  and  lately  in  the  mentioned  one  on  "  The  Quadruple  Problem  of 
Gnostics." 

(^)  Especiallv  in  the  paper  on  "  The  Three  critical  Moments  in  theHistory  of 
Gnostics  of  Modern  Philosophy  "  (Vol.  X  of  Phil  Works,  p.  61-148). 

{')  Phil.  Works,  Vol  X.,  p.  215. 


1 


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own  plural  being,  either  in  the  relation  of  contemporaneousness 
or  of  succession.  A  sensation,  either  just  now  received,  or 
showing  itself  again  memoratively  may  evoke  some  other 
sensations  to  accompany  it :  in  this  case  the  affirmation  of 
existence  concerns  them  all ;  it  is  concerning  them  as  a  group." 

With  regard  then  to  the  external  Fact,  my  book  on  "  The 
Psychological  Fact  of  Perception''  {')  is  entirely  devoted  to  the 
same  ;  I  make  similar  reference  in  my  other  publications  ;  in 
one  of  which,  then  recently  issued  (^)  is  to  be  found  a 
summary  of  my  ideas  which  I  now  quote  in  a  few  w  urds. 
Perception  gives  me  the  external  fact  (either  as  "Thing"  or  as 
"Event")  but  the  sensation  contained  in  the  Perception  being 
that  which  only  corresponds  to  the  external  Fact  (with  wiiuh 
the  integrations  among  which  stands  the  same  sensation  have 
nothing  to  do),  so  the  apprehension  we  have,  v.hen  we  are 
perceiving,  must  be  deprived  of  its  accompanying  subjective- 
nesses  in  order  that  it  might  guarantee  of  reality. 

In  a  short,  the  internal  Fact  is  absolutely  certain  :  wliile 
the  external  one  is  certain  only  "sub  conditioned 

Now  how  can  the  opponents  say  that  tlie  positivist  takes 
the  Fact  only  as  objective,  and  that  he  does  not  justifv  and 
determine  its  value  in  order  to  assure  himself  of  the  principle  of 
his  method  and  in  order  to  claim  the  sole  value  of  it  ?  Or 
perhaps,  the  opponents  mean  to  say  that  it  is  possible  to  wan  .nit 
Truth  apart  from  the  ascertainment  of  Facts  ? 

{d)  The  world  of  mind  according  to  the  positivists  is  not 
an  aggregation  of  atoms  mechanically  combinable  according  to 
the  way  of  the  external  world. 

The  psychological  atomism  (i.e.,  "enadism"  as  I  have 
called  it)  which  is  peculiar  to  the  traditional  philosophy,  has 
been  expressly  and  uninterruptedly  combatted  in  my  books, 
particularly  in  the  one  "  On  Truth  "  (^),  in  the  other  "  On  The 
Unity  of  Mind  "  (*)  ;    in  the  third,  which  has  the  following  title  : 


(1)  In  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  IV.  of  the  year  1886,  but  in  large  part  published 
in  the  year  1882  in  "  La  Rassegna  Critica  "  of  Naples,  directed  by  Angivlli. 

(2)  "Metaphysical  Thesis,  Scientific  Hypothesis,  Ascertained  Fact"  (Phil. 
Works,  Vol.  X.,  p.  198-201). 

(3)  From  Chap.  XXIV.  to  XXXI.  included,  from  p.  361   to  399  in  the  first 
edition  of  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  V. 

{*)  Chapter  VII.,  No.  9  and  foil.  (p.  512  and  foil,  of  Phil.  Works),  Vol.  VII. 


lO 


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II 


"  The  Idealism  of  the  Old  Speculation  and  the  Realism  of  the 
Positive  Philosophy"  {')  ;  and  lastly,  in  the  writing  ''The 
Three  Critical  Moments  in  the  History  of  the  Theory  of  Knoivledge 
of  Modern  Philosophy''  {').  In  a  passage  of  the  latter  ('),  for 
instance,  I  express  myself  on  the  subject  as  follows  :  "  Although 
the  function  of  Intelligence  does  not  appear  to  us  under  the 
aspect  of  a  material  mechanism  fas  all  the  other  functions  do 
on  account  of  their  being  known  through  the  external  organs 
of  sense)  although  the  same  function  is  simply  apprehended 
through  the  medium  of  its  consciousness  alone  ;  yet,  the 
function  of  intelligence  as  being  pertinent  to  every  animal 
(from  protozoa  to  man)  by  progressive  degrees,  is  to  be  con- 
sidered as  a  biological  function  ;  consequently,  it  originates, 
evolves,  establishes  itself  into  its  own  decisive  aspect  and  then 
operates  just  according  to  what  is  required  by  the  organic 
apparatus  on  which  (under  whatever  appearance)  every  vital 
activity  depends.  Numberless  are  the  various  exciting  stimula- 
tions ....  but  in  their  manner  of  acting  there  are  some 
determinated  likenesses,  which  can  cause  some  determinated  sorts 
of  ideations  to  arise  out  of  the  stimulated  organism.  The  more 
the  experience  of  those  stimuli  is  repeated,  the  more  those  sorts 
of  ideations  become  habitual  and  fixed  ;  so  much  so  that  in  the 
end  thev  become  the  very  same  fundamental  constitution  of  the 
mind  ;  so  forcibly  fundamental  that  no  psychical  re-sentment, 
nor  any  casual  distinct  conception  may  arise  in  Psyche  without 
awakening  the  above  mentioned  sorts  of  ideations  (directly  or 
indirectly,  near  or  far,  the  more  this  or  the  more  that)  and 
without  causing  the  distinct  occasional  conception  itself  to 
become  framed  by  them.  And  here  it  is  the  very  vital  point  of 
the  question  to  be  especially  observed  ;  that  is  the  "  RHYTHM  " 
resulting  from  several  impressions ;  the  peculiarity  of  ideation 
in  which  it  consists,  etc " 

If  I  now  allude  to  the  dependence  of  the  psychical 
activity  upon  the  activity  of  the  organic  apparatus  (to  which 
dependence  our  opponents  make  a  reserve),  we  shall  afterwards 
see  how  much  their  "  Modern  Idealism  "  is  scientifically  grounded. 


0)  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  IX. 
{")  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  X. 
(3)  p.  117,  iiS. 


f     i 


11. 


I.     They  say  '*  Positivism  does  not  admit  : 

Firstly:  That  Psychical  Facts  are  forms  (or  ''values''  as 
they  are  accustomed  to  call  them)  always  produced  "  ex  novo  " 
and  quite  different  from  their  oivn  compounding  elements  and  from 
them  not  to  he  derived ;  so  that  in  Psychical  Facts  the  only  matter  of 
importance  is  their  quality  which  only  7nay  be  set  in  relief  in  them 
because  no  quantity  belongs  to  them  it  being  peculiar  only  to  the 
Physical  Facts. 

Secondly:  That  the  characteristic  of  Psyche  is  the  unity  into 
ivhich  its  present  and  past  arc  melted.  Unity  idiich  is  in  con- 
trast to  the  multiplicity  that  is  peculiar  only  to  the  external  world. 

Thirdly  :  That  two  fundamental  hnvs  are  ruling  tiic  Psyche  ; 
the  Laiv  of  Abbreviation  and  the  Law  of  the  Heterogeneity  of 
Purposes." 

In  all  these  statements  our  opponents  either  say  things 
which  are  not  true  or  insist  on  some  of  their  doctrines,  which 
cannot  be  maintained  at  all.     As  I  am  about  to  prove. 

(a)  It  is  pertinent  to  the  very  doctrine  of  Positivism,  that 
Psychical  Facts  are  a  sort  of  form  always  emerging  "  ex  novo," 
and  in  which  their  compounding  parts  are  always  dissimulated. 

This  ha?  already  resulted  from  what  we  have  said  above. 
But  it  will  now  be  useful  to  hear  some  other  witnesses  and 
arguments  in  order  to  show,  not  only  that  it  is  not  true  that 
Positivism  denies  such  a  doctrine,  but  that  on  the  contrary, 
such  a  doctrine  has  only  in  Positivism  its  own  explanation,  its 
precise  determination,  and  its  more  extended,  complete  and 
practical  use. 

In  some  part  of  my  "  Ethics  of  Positivists  "  (^)  I  write  : 
*'  Representations  do  not  inorganically  mix  in  the  Mind  so  as  to 
preserve  in  it  their  single  individualities  as  it  may  be  said  of  the 
seeds  belonging  to  a  sack  of  corn.  On  the  contrary  representa- 
tions compound  themselves  up  in  the  Mind  so  as  to  form  the 
peculiar  organism  of  the  Psychical  life  of  the  conscious  subject. 
Their  union  is  rightly  called  a  simple  association,  when  the  com- 
ponent parts  of  the  resulting   psychical   organism  keep  them- 


(0  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  III.  (pp.  49,  50). 


) 


12 

selv^es  distinct  in  it ;  but  the  psychical  organism  is  called  by  me 
a  "  specification''  when  its  psychical  totality  appears  to  be  quite 
a  different  thing  in  comparison  to  its  own  ingredients,  and 
therefore,  as  a  novel  psychical  species  because  its  components  do 
not  keep  themselves  distinct  in  it. 

This  law  of  specification  is  a  fundamental  one  in  Thought. 
When  all  due  conditions  are  given  (they  cannot  here  be  enume- 
rated) such  a  law  never  fails  to  work,  not  only  as  far  as  regards 
the  relation  of  representation,  but  also  that  of  emotion  ;  and  it 
works  in  such  a  way  as  to  cause  the  resulting  species  to  be 
mathematically  proportional  to  the  quality,  number,  dose  of  the 
ingredient  of  the  formation.  Mathematically  such,  just  as  it 
happens  in  the  chemical  and  in  every  other  species  of  nature, 
wherein,  after  all  analysis,  Mathematics  represents  nothing  but 
the  abstract  scheme  of  all  Sciences."  And  in  some  other  part 
I  write:  (')  "The  formation  process  of  Nature  is  indefinitely  pro- 
gressive; and  such  it  is  owing  to  the  possibility  of  a  similar 
indefinitely  progressive  specification.  Specification  is  always  to 
be  called  progressive  ;  because  a  system  of  distinct  psychicalties 
(i.e.,  a  specification  already  formed)  may  associate  with  other 
systems  (say  with  other  specifications).  In  this  case,  progress 
consists  in  the  fact  that  this  new  specification  is  such  a  unity 
whose  elements,  instead  of  being  indistinct  in  themselves,  are 
containing  already  a  distinction."  And  how  often  do  I  not- 
retrun  to  this  idea  in  all  my  books  (^)  ? 

(2)  It  is,  consequently,  just  so  clear  that  Positivism  does 
not  deny  the  spoken  of  fact,  as  true  it  is,  that  the  explanation  of 
such  a  fact  cannot  be  found  in  the  Idealism  of  our  opponents 
but  in  Positivism  alone;  and  exactly  so  in  its  "  Laiv  of  Rhythm,'' — 
a  law  that  has  been  developed  by  me  on  many  and  many  occasions. 
In  my  book  "  On  Truth  "  (^),  for  instance,  I  say  on  this  point : 
**  Mental  phenomenon  is  a  vital  motion,  which  shows  itself 
under  so  many  various  rhythms,  as  the  conscious  appearances 
are ;  under  various  rhythms  that  concert  themselves  together  into 
the  rhythms  composed  by  the  thoughts  constituted  by  complex 
elements.     Into  these  compounded  rhythms,  I  say,  on  which  one 

(»)  In  the  book  on  "  The  Xatural  Making  "  (Phil.  Works,  Vol.  II.,  p.  43). 
(2)  For  instance  :  Vol.  VI.,  p.  165  and  foil.  ;  193  and  foil. ;  VII.,  p.  58 
and  foil. ;  IX.,  p.  28  and  foil. ;  186  and  foil. ;  etc. 
Q)  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  V.,  pp.  232-233. 


> 


i     / 


13 

of  them  is  ahvays  predominating  and  subordinating  the  others, 
so  as  to  become  characteristic  of  a  given  thought  ....  and 
here  is  the  reason  of  the  Association  of  Likeness  ....  and  by 
this  it  is  confirmed  not  onlv  that  an  idea  is  alwavs  and  merelv 
constituted  by  elements  of  sensation  ;  but  also  that  what  we 
call  one  very  same  idea  may  indifferently  be  constituted  by 
different  sensations,  because  the  presumed  sameness  only  depends 
on  the  correspondence  of  the  relative  rhythmical  motions."  And 
I  develop,  demonstrate,  and  illustrate  later  on  the  same  law 
in  many  other  places  (') 

Having  given  this  explanation,  I  extend  and  complete 
its  applicability  (to  our  opponents  it  would  seem,  un- 
known) to  the  formation  and  function  of  what  is  called  "  idea  " 
(about  which  nearly  the  whole  of  my  book  "  On  Truth  "  treats) 
and  to  the  formation  of  the  very  specifical  sensations  themselves  ; 
as  is  to  be  seen,  among  other  passages,  in  the  Note  270  (')  of 
the  "  Psychology  as  a  Positive  Science,"  a  note  which  is  too  long 
to  be  quoted  here. 

(6)  It  cannot,  however,  be  maintained  what  our  opponents 
here  add,  namely,  that  the  above  mentioned  forms  always  ex 
novo  emerging  may  not  be  derived  from  their  components. 

This  proceeds  from  the  mentioned  reasons  of  the  arising  of 
the  forms  always  ex  novo  emerging  of  the  psychical  facts  ;  and 
is  shown  in  a  direct  manner  by  many  passages  in  my  books. 
Read,  for  instance,  the  Note  264  (')  of  my  lastly  quoted  work 
(too  long  to  be  transcribed  here)  and  the  pages  of  the  text  to 
which  it  is  referred.  Those  then  who  are  acquainted  with  my 
works  will  know  how  many  times  and  in  how  many  manners 
the  assertion  of  the  same  note  and  pages  are  illustrated  and 
confirmed. 

(2  c)  And  inconsistent  is  the  so  much  trumpeted  doctrine, 
that  is  now  so  much  the  fashion,  according  to  which,  of  thr 
psychical  facts,  is  only  to  be  known  wiiat  is  only  of  importance  in 
them,  namely,  their  ''quality";  and  not  any  ''quantity"  at  all  ; 
the  latter  being  said  not  to  be  pertaining  to  them,  but  only  to 
objectiveness. 


(»)  Principally,  II.,  227-233  ;  V.,  246  and  foil. ;  301  and  foil.  ;  337  and  foil. ; 
VI.,  97,  226  and  foil.  ;  VII.,  131  and  foil. ;  Note,  131-134  ;  IX.,  42  and  foil.,  etc. 
(2)  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  423-429. 
Q)  pp.  414-422. 


V 


14 


On  this  point,  I  will  firstly  and  immediately  speak  about 
the  argumentation,  behind  which  our  opponents  think  them- 
selves absolutely  safe,  the  argumentation  of  Henry  Bergson 
against  the  psychophysical  law  (^). 

In  a  few  words,  the  reasoning  of  Bergson  is  as  follows  :  In 
the  extent  of  a  line  (let  us  take  this  example  in  order  to  make 
use  of  the  clearest  possible  one),  you  can  take  one  portion  of  it 
and  place  it  on  the  rest,  and  then  count  how  many  portions  are 
necessary  to  cover  the  whole  of  the  line,  so  that  the  resulting 
number  be  the  measure  of  it.  But  the  same  operation  cannot 
be  made  with  any  sensation  whatever ;  because  if,  in  order  to 
get  the  portion  to  be  afterward  summed  up  with  others  into  the 
more  intense  one  (which  is  presumed  to  be  their  sum)  you  com- 
pare a  small  with  a  larger  sensation,  you  get  no  more  what,  in 
itself,  constitutes  this  larger  sensation  ;  for  the  small  one  is 
something  specifically  different  and  hence,  not  comparable  with 
the  larger  one,  in  order  to  say  that  it  be  the  result  of  a  certain 
number  of  the  small  ones. 

But  Bergson  does  not  here  perceive  that  an  analogous 
argument  may  be  used  with  respect  to  the  magnitude  in  extent 
of  the  line  ;  so  that  if  the  argumentation  is  not  worth  having 
there,  it  is  worth  nothing  here  ;  he  does  not  perceive  that,  if  he 
denies  the  intensive  quantity  of  the  sensation,  he  comes  to  deny 
the  extensive  quantity  of  the  extent  ;  and  therefore,  to  deny  any 
sort  of  quantity  whatever;  or,  generally  speaking,  what  is 
called  "  quantity.''  I  compare  the  representation  of  a  line  one 
span  long  to  the  other  a  mile  long,  and  say  "the  first  is 
shorter  than  the  second,  which,  in  consequence,  is  said  to  be  the 
longer  one.  And  I  compare  the  representation  of  the  sound  caused 
by  a  fist  knocked  down  on  my  desk  to  the  sound  caused  by  the 
cannon  fired  near  my  house  ;  and  here,  too,  the  sound  caused 
bv  the  fist  is  said  to  be  lesser  than  the  other  caused  by  the 
cannon.  Not  at  all,  Bergson  would  here  reply,  for  we  have 
here  two  different  specialities  of  data,  so  that  I  cannot  think  of 
the  lesser  sound  as  a  portion  of  the  other.  But  this  reasoning  is 
also  applicable  to  the  representations  of  the  line  a  span  long 
and  of  the  other  a  mile  long,  they  being  themselves  two  psychi- 
cal data,  i.e. J  two  specialities  of  data. 


JL  i 


That  reasoning  of  Bergson,  however,  does  not  hold  good, 
because  the  specialities  of  the  two  data  do  not  exclude  their 
concordance  in  what  is  belonging  to  them  in  common.  A  span, 
as  such,  differs  from  a  mile  of  the  road  as  such  ;  but  they  both 
agree,  one  with  the  other,  as  being  two  representations  of  dis- 
tance. The  representation  of  the  noise  of  a  fist  differs  as  a 
noise  from  the  noise  of  a  cannon  shot ;  but  they  both  agree  in 
as  far  as  they  are  both  of  them  two  representations  of  sound. 
The  same  thing  is  also  true  when  referred  to  all  the  other  repre- 
sentations of  the  most  different  specialities,  because  they  always 
and  likewise  are  but  conscious  facts.  Here  the  reason  is 
why  two  quite  different  data,  for  instance  a  slight  fusty  smell 
and  a  toothache  may  be  compared  between  them  from  the  point 
of  view  of  their  magnitude;  the  reason  why  it  may  be  said, 
that  the  first,  compared  with  the  second,  is  something  little. 

This  is  so  true,  that  at  last  it  comes  to  be  admitted  also 
by  Bergson  himself,  who  in  his  very  book  (')  writes  as  follows  : 
"/t  does  not  suffice  to  say  that  a  number  is  a  collection  of  unities; 
it  is  also  to  be  added  that  these  unities  are  identical  between  theniy 
or  at  least,  that  they  are  supposed  to  be  such,  since  they  are  counted 
up.  One  may  certainly  sum  up  the  sheep  of  a  flock,  and  then  say 
that  they  are  fifty,  although  they  are  distinguished  one  from  an- 
other so  ivell  that  their  shepherd  knoivs  each  one  of  them,  but  the 
reckoning  is  possible,  because  on  such  an  occasion  it  becomes  con- 
venient NOT  TO  care  about  THEIR  INDIVIDUAL  PECULIARITIES 
AND  KEEP  INSTEAD  AN  ACCOUNT  ONLY  OF  WHAT  THEY  POSSESS  IN 
COMMON." 

So  that  (as  the  comparable  data  of  the  external  world  are 
nothing  else  in  the  end  but  conscious  data)  if  we  find  any 
quantity  to  exist  in  them  that  depends  upon  the  fact  that  a  quantity 
is  belonging  to  all  conscious  data  ;  whether  authosynthetic  or 
heterosynthetic  ones  ;  except  their  specifical  forms  of  quantity, 
according  as  the  data  are,  either  of  the  one,  or  of  the  other  sort. 
And  quantity  does  so  well  belong  to  the  psychical  facts  that  it 
may  appear  either  as  "  extent  "  {i.e.,  multiplicity  of  coexisting 
data);  or  like  ''duration''  (/.e.,  multiplicity  of  successive  data) ; 
or  as  "  number  "  {i.e.,  as  a  descrete  multiplicity  either  of  extended 
or  of  un-extended    data)  ;  or  as  "  intensity "  {i.e.,  as  a  multi- 


(')  In  his  book,  ''On  the  Immediate  Data  of  Consciousness,"  I  make  use  of  tlie 
5th  Alcan  Paris  edition,  1906. 


{')  P-  58. 


i6 

plicity  or  as  an  accumulation  of  data  without  discontinuity  and 
distinction). 

(3).  But  an  objection  is  here  presented ;  that  is  to  say  that 
the  conscious  datum  may  appear  either  as  representative  of  an 
object,  or  as  a  bare  subjective  consciousness  of  itself  ;  and  that 
a  quantity  is  to  be  realised  and  affirmed  in  the  first  case  but  not 
in  the  second.  This  is  an  objection  that,  however,  is  only  fit  to 
show  the  confusion  caused  by  a  very  insufiicient  (not  to  say 
entirely  missing)  psychological  analysis. 

Let  us  omit  saying  that  it  is  altogether  against  common 
sense  to  affirm  the  sensation  caused  by  a  hundred  organ  pipes 
sounding  together,  not  to  be  greater  than  the  one  caused  by  a 
single  pipe  ;  and  let  us  also  not  insist  upon  saying  that  to  deny 
that  a  sensation  is  in  itself  a  quantity,  makes  it  impossible  fo 
put  any  quantity  in  the  objective  representation  itself,  as  we 
will  show  afterwards. 

Now,  in  order  to  answer  directly  the  proposed  objection,  let 
us  take  the  two  following  examples  :  the  representation  of  the 
run  of  a  bullet  shot  by  a  gun  and  the  sensation  caused  by  a 
hundred  organ  pipes  sounding  together  in  unison.  The  repre- 
sentation of  the  run  of  the  bullet  is  thought  of  by  me  as  a 
datum  greater  than  the  length  of  a  rod  ;  but  if  considered  in 
itself,  the  bullet  run  is  thought  of  as  a  single  indistinct  quantity. 
Just  the  same  thing  is  to  be  said  as  to  the  representation  of  the 
intensity  of  the  sound  of  a  hundred  organ  pipes  in  comparison 
with  the  intensity  of  the  sound  of  one  single  pipe.  The  greatest 
and  the  lesser  data  are  both  in  themselves,  as  well  there  as 
here,  one  indistinct  datum  ;  and  I  can  make  use  of  the  lesser  ones 
to  distinguish  the  indistinct  quantity  of  the  greatest  ones.  But 
bv  the  rod,  I  can  measure  how  manv  times  it  is  contained  in  the 
run  of  the  gun  bullet,  so  as  to  get  a  distinct  idea  of  the  run  and 
afterwards  say,  for  example,  that  it  is  a  hundred  times  greater 
than  the  length  of  the  rod.  And  here  is  to  be  seen  in  what  a 
quantity  objectively  determined  consists  ;  to  my  indistinct  repre- 
sentation of  it  I  connect  associatively  the  representation  of  the 
effected  operation  and  that  of  the  number  turned  out  of  it ;  number, 
which  I  think  to  be  the  exact  reason  of  the  greater  length  ;  still 
remaining,  however,  the  indistinct  fact  of  the  length  of  the  rod, 
which  I  have  not  yet  measured. 


J- 


^     \ 


17 

But  quite  the  same  operation  may  be  performed  on  the 
greater  indistinct  quantity  of  the  complex  sound  of  the  hundred 
organ  pipes  by  saying  the  total  sound  I  am  hearing  is  exactly 
the  one  resulting  from  the  sound  of  a  hundred  pipes  ;  and  leav- 
ing then  still  indistinct  the  quantity  of  sound  pertinent  to  a 
single  pipe. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  we  can  operate  on  a  sensation  just 
as  we  have  done  on  the  run  of  the  bullet ;  on  a  sensation, 
which  as  such,  is  but  a  bare  subjectiveness  ;  and  we  see  that  is 
possible,  therefore,  to  gain  for  it  that  same  distinction,  which 
is,  then,  taken  as  an  objectiveness ;  consequently  the  determinated 
objective  quantity  may  be  obtained  not  only  with  regard  to  the 
length  of  a  line,  as  considered  to  be  an  objectiveness;  but  also 
may  be  gained  for  a  sensation  ;  because  it  may  itself  anala- 
gously  connect  v.^ith  an  objective  correspondence  of  its  own. 
As  well  there,  as  here,  we  mieasure  the  stimulus  that  causes  the 
representation,  and  if,  by  measuring  the  stimulus  we  gain  a 
greatness  there,  we  must  gain  the  same  here  also.  Two  forms 
of  magnitude ;  there  and  here ;  the  bare  representation  indis- 
tinct, the  measurement  of  the  stimulus  distinct.  The  objective 
quantity,  therefore,  consists  in  mentally  substituting  the 
indistinct  representation  for  the  number  turned  out  of  the 
measurement. 

And  let  it  not  be  said,  in  order  to  contradict  what  has 
been  now  stated  that  the  datum  of  a  sound,  until  it  is  only  an 
objective  sensation,  stands  no  more  in  the  same  ratio  to  the 
objective  datum  with  which  it  is  corresponding,  because  the 
very  same  thing  is  then  exactly  to  be  said  of  the  representation 
of  a  line;  so  much  more  so,  that  after  all,  the  congruity  is 
always  persisting,  even  if  by  reason  of  the  physiological  proper- 
ties of  the  organism,  the  external  increasing  in  geometrical  pro- 
portion of  a  datum  be  followed,  either  in  arithmetical,  or  (as 
the  case  may  be)  in  a  less  proportion,  by  the  increasing  of  the 
internal  datum. 

Likewise,  let  it  not  be  said,  that  the  instance  of  the  sound 
of  the  organ  pipes  cannot  be  decisive,  on  account  of  the  impossi- 
bility of  measuring  objectively  the  immensely  greater  number  of 
the  psychical  facts;  especially  when  it  is  a  matter  of  sentiment; 
because  if  the  measurement  cannot  be  had  by  the  means  which 
are  till  now  at  our  disposal,  nevertheless,  and  absolutely  speak- 


i8 

ing,  it  is  possible  to  be  gained — because  the  psychical  facts  are 
always  the  exact  equivalents  to  the  excitements  of  the  physio- 
logical apparatus  ;  so  that  when  on  the  one  side,  the  perform- 
ing organs  and  the  stimulus  undergone  were  exactly  known, 
and  when  on  the  other  side,  we  might  designate  the  unity  by 
which  the  stimulation  were  to  be  measured,  we  should  directly 
succeed  in  doing  the  same  operation. 

The  psychical  fact  itself,  comes  therefore,  to  be  a  measur- 
able objectiveness  and,  consequently,  a  magnitude  ;  just  as  is  a 
magnitude  the  actual  road,  which  is  measurable  by  the  pole. 
And  it  is  no  more  a  matter  of  the  representation  in  the  abstract 
sense  (in  which  intensity  and  therefore  magnitude  are  neg- 
lected) it  is  no  more  a  matter  I  say,  either  for  instance,  of  the 
abstract  representation  of  the  sound,  or  of  that  of  the  road  a 
mile  long,  which  also  (as  being  a  mere  abstract  representation) 
is  no  more  a  length  ;  but  only  a  species  or  a  ''quiddity,''  and 
behold  the  gross  equivocation,  which  lies  as  a  foundation,  under 
the  thesis  so  strangely  erroneous  of  Bergson  who,  when  speak- 
ing of  the  road,  speaks  about  the  actual  road ;  and,  on  the 
contrary,  when  speaking  of  the  sound,  speaks  of  the  abstract 
sound. 

4.  But  then  ad  abundant iam,  I  will  add  some  other 
remarks  referring  to  some  other  parts  of  the  same  book  of 
Bergson.  A  few,  it  is  understood,  otherwise  I  should  write  a 
book. 

Bergson  says  : — "That  is  called  the  greater  quantity  which 
contains  another.  The  thing  cannot  be  understood  but  as 
referring  to  an  extent  which  is  thought  of  as  being  constituted 
of  parts.  An  intensity  is  not  an  extent ;  therefore  we  cannot 
say  that  the  former  either  contains  any  of  the  latter  or  that  it  is 
a  magnitude."  How  many  faults  and  incongruities  in  such 
reasoning  as  this  !  Let  magnitude  be  defined  by  means  of  the 
specialities  of  the  magnitude  of  the  extent  and  it  will  be 
no  more  possible  to  admit  it  in  the  inextension  of  intensity. 
Likewise,  if  someone  else  would  prefer  defining  magnitude 
by  the  specialities  of  the  inextended  intensity,  it  would 
no  more  be  possible  (and  through  the  same  logic)  to  admit 
it  in  the  extension  itself.  And  when,  to  the  purpose  of 
depriving  the  psychical  fact  of  its  magnitude  of  extension 
(which    is   said   cannot   be    found    in    it)   one    comes   to    deny 


-> 


'* 


^S    ' 


f 


/ 


^9 

that    in    intensity    there    is    no    magnitude,    one    is    obliged 
to  deny  also  the  existence  of  any  magnitude   in  the   physical 
energy;  which,    being  an  intensity,  cannot    be  thought    of  as 
a   magnitude    liable    to    increase    and    diminish ;    so    that    it 
would  not  be  possible  to  affirm   that  an  electromotor  power  of 
ten  thousand  volts  is  greater  than  one  of  only  five  thousand. 
Put  the  case  that,  as  regards  the  physical  energy,  it  should  be 
admitted  that  the  greatest  energy  must  be  understood  to  be  the 
sum  of  minima  accumulated  in  it.     Why  should  we  not  be  per- 
mitted to  think  just  the  same  as  regards  the  psychical  intensity  ? 
So  much  the  more  so,  that,  as  we  made  mention  above  at  num- 
ber 2  (')   Psychology  is  in  the  position  of  establishing  that  a 
psychical  datum  is  always  a  plurality  of  minima  connected  in 
it.     So  much  the  more,  that  in  the  exterior  world  among  for 
instance,  the  weights  of  the  atoms  (which  are  intended  to  be  the 
last  terms  of  the  descending  scale  of  physical  magnitude)  there 
are  differences  from  each  other,  i.e.,  there  are  greater  and  lesser 
weights ;  there  is  there,  for  instance,  the  atom  of  oxygen,  which 
has  been  calculated  to  be  sixteen  times  greater  than  the  one  of 
hydrogen. 

5.  And,  after  all,  the  reasoning  set  against  us,  turns  to  be 
nothing  else  but  a  syllogistic  circle. 

An  extent  is  large,  they  say,  by  reason  of  the  parts  it  con- 
tains. And  how^  now  can  it  be  such,  if  there  is  no  magni- 
tude in  its  compounding  parts?  A  sum  of  cipher  magnitudes 
cannot  be  an  N  magnitude.  That  part,  absolutely  speaking, 
would  be  reduced  to  the  infinitely  little,  i.e.,  to  what,  to  wiiich 
no  magnitude  is  attributable  because  it  is  always  escaping. 
Effectually  the  part,  or  unity,  by  which  you  measure,  cannot  be, 
at  its  last  extremity,  but  that  minimum  of  contents  and  clearness 
of  consciousness  to  which  the  representative  act  may  be  reduced. 
This  minimum  or  this  last  indistinct  quantity,  i.e.,  the  very 
intensity  itself  of  the  psychical  act. 

This  very  thing  is,  how^ever,  thought  of  also  by  Bergson 
himself  when,  about  that  Sophism  of  the  Eleatics,  which  is  well 
known  under  the  name  of  Achilles,  he  writes  (^)  contradicting 
himself:  "  The  interval  w^hich  separates  two  points  is  infinitely 


Q)  When  referring  to  Note  270  of  my  book  on   Psychology  as  a   Positive 
Science. 

{')  P-  85. 


20 

divisible,  and  should  motion  be  compounded  of  parts  like  those 
of  the  interval  itself,  the  interval  would  never  be  got  over." 
He  sends  back  to  motion  the  intensive  quantity,  but  he  is 
compelled  to  admit  it  ;  and  by  sending  it  back,  he  does  but 
send  back  the  difhculty,  because  the  same  remark  of  the  infinite 
divisibility  is  also  concerning  motion. 

One  comes,  in  short,  to  the  conclusion  that  quantity, 
whence  one  begins,  cannot  be  thought  of  otherwise  but  as  an 
intensity  (')  and  if  an  intensity  is  not  a  quantity,  as  Bergson 
says,  he  who  builds  magnitude  by  these  intensive  quantities 
(i.e.,  inextended  data)  he  makes  magnitude  become  a  sum  of 
noughts;  that  is  a  non-magnitude.  What  a  treachery  to 
Bergson  !  This  ultimate  intensity  of  the  above  mentioned  par- 
ticle (which  must  be  a  certain  magnitude  since  the  total  to 
which  it  is  belonging  as  a  component  part  is  a  magnitude),  is 
in  the  end,  nothing  else  but  the  thought  itself  of  that  same 
intensity ;  so  that  quantity  is  not  only  pertinent  to  our  own 
thought,  but  must  even  be  in  it  in  order  that  one  may  put 
quantity  in  the  exterior  world. 

6.  Bergson  says  (^) :  *'.*l  cousciousdatum  is  usually  accompanied 
by  some  reactions  more  or  less  extended  in  the  body.  This  fact  is 
the  reason  why  one  deceives  oneself  by  believing  that  quantity 
{ivhich  only  belongs  to  these  reactions)  belongs,  on  the  contrary,  to 
what  by  itself  cannot  possess  anything  else  but  quality.'' 

About  this  remark,  many  things  are  here  to  be  said  in  order 
to  show  more  clearly  its  inefficacy  to  the  effect  of  denying  that 
quantity  is  proper  to  the  conscious  datum.  No  possibility  of 
conscious  datum  without  the  cerebral  work  with  which  the 
conscious  datum  effectuates.  To  a  cerebral  work  may  corre- 
spond the  work  provoked  in  the  rest  of  the  organism.  This 
work  so  provoked,  extends,  more  or  less  and  continuously,  into 
the  brain,  causing  there  the  cerebral  work  of  its  being  felt. 

This  conscious  datum  may  show  itself  as  being  alone,  so 
as  to  be  erroneously  taken  as  a  mere  psychical  act  altogether 
independent  from  any  physiological  work.     The  conscious  act 

(^)  This  is  explained  at  a  length  in  my  book  On  Truth  in  a  part  of  which 
{Chap.  XVIH.)  this  intensity  is  called  the  "Model,''  i.e.,  the  absolute  unity  of 
measurement  for  an  individual,  either  a  greater  or  a  lesser  model  remaining  an 
identical  space  with  the  proportion  of  its  parts  ;  a  model  which  is  the  subjective 
valuation,  i.e.,  the  datum  having  the  possibility  of  becoming  a  consciousness. 

(2)  Page  24. 


.J    -> 


^A 


t 


21 

may  arise  together  with  certain  motions  showing  themselves  as 
external,  so  as  to  present  itself  in  their  company  and  its  own 
representation  as  being  in  connection  with  the  distinct  repre- 
sentation of  each  of  the  same  external  motions.  The  motions 
externally  knowable,  may  be  produced  and  known  as  being 
external,  without  our  having  in  the  same  time  the  conscious- 
ness of  their  central  initial  motion,  on  account  of  the  habitual- 
ness,  by  which  the  initial  central  motion  may  reach  at  its  own 
effects,  through  one  of  its  very  low  degrees  of  strength,  so  that 
it  be  not  afterwards  possible  to  distinguish  at  all  the  sensation 
of  it. 

This  being  established,  we  make  the  following  remarks  : — 
Firstly  :  A  psychicalty  when  believed  to  be  such  merely 
for  itself,  is  valued  sometimes  as  a  greater  and  sometimes 
as  a  lesser  mentality ;  it  is,  therefore,  always  thought  of  as 
a  quantity.  The  sorrowful  sentiment  caused,  by  an  expe- 
rienced loss  is  less,  when  it  is  a  matter  of  a  penny  fallen 
.into  the  sea,  than  when  it  is  a  matter  of  a  much  beloved 
son.  Secondly  :  If  by  reason  of  the  increasing  of  the  central 
action,  the  peripherical  motions  that  are  accompanying  a 
psychical  re-sentment,  extend  together  with  the  arising  of 
their  relative  ideas  (just  as  it  happens  when,  on  lifting  up  a 
weight,  we  feel  that  one  arm  does  not  suffice  for  the  purpose 
and*  we  make  then  use  also  of  the  other),  the  psychical  re-sent- 
ment increases  together  with  the  increasing  of  the  central  action 
and  we  feel  that  the  same  re-sentment  is  increasing  indepen- 
dently from  the  ideas  which  (because  of  the  extending  of  the 
peripherical  motions)  little  by  little  join  together  with  it. 
Thirdly,  and  lastly  :  When  it  is  a  matter  of  habitualness  when 
therefore  the  ideas  connected  to  the  peripherical  motions  can 
multiplicate,  still  remaining,  however,  either  a  very  slight,  or 
an  inadverted  re-sentment  of  the  central  action,  the  sum  of 
those  ideas  does  not  absolutely  work  in  causing  the  central 
resentment  to  appear  to  be  greater,  but  such  a  sum  is  appre- 
hended simply  as  being  such  a  total. 

7.     A  great  many  remarks   ought  here  to  be  made  upon 
what,  to  support  his  own  thesis,  Bergson  says  about  Number 
Unity,  and  Multiplicity  in  the  first  part  of  the  second  heading  of 
his  book  ;  but  doing  so,  would   take  us,  and  in  vain,  out  of  the 
way  of  the  purpose  to  which  we  aim.     Therefore,  as  to  that 


22 


which  is  concerning  those  matters,  I  leave  it  to  what  on  those 
topics  is  diffusely  told  in  my  book  on  The  Unity  of  Mind,  and 
mainly  in  its  headings  V.-VII.  of  the  first  part,  and  I. -III.  of 
the  second.  Likewise,  as  to  what  Bergson  very  inadequately 
writes  in  his  very  same  heading  upon  space,  I  leave  it  again  to 
what,  on  this  topic,  I  wrote  at  length  in  Chapters  XVI. -XIX. 
of  mv  book  on  Truth. 

Here  it  will  suffice  to  make  the  following  remark.  Bergson 
says  (')  A  moment  of  time  cannot  stop  in  order  to  be  joined  by 
other  following  moments.  If  sounds  keep  separated  from  each 
other,  it  is  because  they  leave  so7ne  intervals  betii'een  them.  If  they 
are  summed  up,  that  is  oiving  to  the  existence  of  the  intervals 
between  the  passing  sounds  ;  and  hoiv  now  could  those  intervals  be 
there,  if  they  ivere  not  of  space  but  only  of  bare  duration  ?  "  But 
if  those  intervals  were  of  space,  we  ask,  how  could  then  the 
sounds  appear  to  be  successive  instead  of  coexisting  data  ?  The 
fact  is  that  thought  in  force  of  the  very  fundamental  law  of 
conception,  is  embroidered  on  tlie  two  essentially  opposite 
schemes  of  coexistence  {i.e.y  of  Space)  and  of  succession  {i.e.,  of 
Time)  ;  and  that  the  distances,  existing  between  the  distinct- 
nesses which  are  distributed  on  those  schemes,  are  some  of 
them  of  time,  and  some  of  space ;  so  that  between  the  sounds, 
which  have  been  here  taken  as  an  instance,  there  are  not 
to  be  found  any  intervals  of  space  at  all  as  Bergson  holds, 
but  only  intervals  of  time ;  the  representation  of  Time,  on 
account  of  the  fundamental  law  of  Mind  being  so  obvious, 
natural  and  in  its  own  peculiarity  inevitable,  just  as  is 
also  the  representation  of  space,  representation  which  differs 
from  that  of  time  only  on  this  point,  that  while  the  former 
is  known  as  being  distributed  on  the  line  of  the  reality  of 
Perception,  the  other  is,  thought  of  as  lying  on  the  line  of 
Memory. 

By  suppressing,  as  Bergson  does,  the  in  itself  fundamental 
scheme  of  duration,  the  objective  successions  come  to  be  no 
more  conceivable  as  such  ;  and  by  introducing  space  among 
the  internal  successions  to  distinguish  them,  we  come  to  turn 
them  again  into  simple  coexistences.  And  if,  as  he  objects,  I 
can  at  the  same  instant   represent  to  myself  the  different  data  of 


C)  P-  66. 


> 


«r 


23 

a  succession  as  constituting  an  order  into  it,  that  happens, 
because  I  place  these  several  data  in  the  scheme  of  time 
by  which  they  become  distinct ;  just  as  it  happens  when,  by 
representing  to  myself  the  different  data  of  a  coexistence  as 
occupying  the  same  point,  I  place  them  in  the  frame  of  space 
by  which  they  keep  distinct  from  each  other  although  the 
thought  of  them  be  standing  in  only  one  point  of  cogitation. 
Just  as  well  as  in  the  scheme  of  a  genus,  its  several  species 
may  be  found  distinct  and  ordinate,  and  in  the  scheme  of  a 
species,  the  individuals  belonging  to  it. 

8.  But  it  does  not  need  (Bergson  would  here  say)  the  special 
scheme  of  duration  in  order  to  apprehend  a  series  of  data  as  being 
successive;  because  for  this  purpose  it  is  enough  that  the  different 
terms  of  the  series  show  themselves  together.  When  it  so  happens, 
we  are  able  to  have,  through  the  internal  vision  of  the  series  itself, 
a  neii)  quality  of  cogitation,  a  quality  which  is  not  to  be  gained  by 
any  of  the  separated  terms.  Well  (I  then  reply)  by  such  a  wav 
it  would  be  analagously  easy  to  remove  the  scheme  of  space ; 
for  it  would  be  also  possible  to  make  a  similar,  though  inverted 
reasoning  about  a  group  of  coexisting  terms.  Not  at  all 
(Bergson  would  insist),  because  this  being  a  matter  of  space,  I 
have  at  my  disposal  the  apprehension  of  a  void  and  homogeneous 
medium,  which  is  an  actuality  and  not  a  quality,  a  medium  on 
ivhose  different  and  distanced  points  I  place  my  terms.  But  I 
would  reply  :  just  the  same  thing  is  to  be  said  when  it  is  a 
matter  of  time ;  for  in  this  case,  I  have  likewise  at  my  disposal 
the  void  medium  of  duration  within  Avhose  distanced  points  I 
can  set  my  terms  just  in  the  same  now  mentioned  way. 

But  there  are  some  other  errors  arising  from  the  already 
referred  to  reasoning  of  Bergson.  In  that  same  way,  by  which 
the  sound  having  the  duration  of  a  quaver,  is  directly  for  itself, 
apprehended  as  being  longer  than  the  duration  of  a  semi- 
quaver, so  the  extent  of  one  meter  is  to  be  apprehended, 
directly  for  itself,  as  being  longer  than  the  extent  of  a  half- 
meter.  The  void  space,  so  far  from  being  the  precedent  by 
which  I  make  use  to  apprehend  the  length  of  extents  is,  on  the 
contrary,  the  abstraction  of  all  of  them  ;  so  that  now  it  turns 
out  again  what  we  already  noticed  above,  i.e.,  that  every 
quality  of  quantum  is  entirely  based  on  that  quantity  which  has 
been  firstly  apprehended  in  the  same  psychical  act.     Let  the 


^i 


same  thing  be  said  about  the  void  duration,  which  I  can 
likewise  conceive  as  being  the  void  homogeneous  medium  that 
is  analogous  to  the  medium  of  space.  After  what  we  liave  been 
saying,  what  Bergson  adds  on  the  measurableness  of  space  ;  on 
motion;  on  the  argumentation  of  Eleatics ;  on  velocity  and 
simultaneousness  ;  all  bee  ernes  vain.  Nor  docs  it  matter  to 
examine  one  after  another  all  his  remarks  on  this  point. 
Doing  so  would  be  making  a  long  and  quite  useless  affair, 
it  being  only  the  matter  of  the  application  of  those  ideas  that 
we  have  already  demonstrated  to  be  erroneous. 

And  it  is  also  erroneous  to  sav,  that  the  void  homo- 
geneous  medium  of  space  is  an  actuality  to  which  any  quality 
does  not  belong.  If  it  is  an  actuality,  it  must  possess  the 
quality  of  being  so;  and  by  saying  ''space,''  we  speak  of  an 
idea  which  is  specifically  different  from  any  other  idea  whatever, 
i.e.,  we  speak  of  a  distinct  ''quiddity."  If,  however,  one  believes 
to  make  space  destitute  of  qualities  by  saying  it  is  void,  he 
instead  does  just  the  contrary,  because  by  adding  voidness  to 
space  he  succeeds  in  making  it  further  on  specificated  and  not 
simple.  And  it  is  also  erroneous  that  "the  actuality  of  space 
ought  to  be  understood  as  being  like  the  actuality  of  a  thing,''  as  it 
is  clearly  said  on  page  84  ;  and  that  "  the  actuality  ivhich  may 
be  aifivmcd  of  it  be  not  analogous  in  every  respect,  to  the  one  of 
duration,  to  which  actuality  is  also  to  be  always  attributed,  of 
course,  in  the  same  meaning  of  relation,  i.e.,  of  relation  between 
successive  data."  As  for  this,  I  leave  it  as  I  have  alreadv 
said,  in  the  above-mentioned  chapters  of  my  book  on  "Truth." 

g.  The  new  doctrine  pleaded  by  our  opponents  (and  so 
much  exalted  on  account  of  its  being  the  fashion)  that  quantum 
be  only  proper  to  the  objective  facts  and  that  quiddity  be  only 
found  to  be  in  the  subjective  ones  is,  therefore,  a  mere  sophistry, 
which  comes  so  far  as  to  deny  the  very  fundamental  law  of  the 
psychical  work  and  phenomenism,  that  are  both  of  them  only 
possible  on  the  condition  that  those  emergencies,  which  are 
quantitatively  greater,  may  encamp  in  the  mind  prevailingly 
over  those  that  are  quantitatively  lesser. 

Quality  is  proper  to  whatsover  a  datum,  as  well  objective 
as  subjective,  because  it  is  just  that  very  datum  which  is  pointed 
out,  and  not  any  other.  This  thing  is,  at  last  and 
hesitatingly,  acknowledged  by  the  same  Bergson,   when  con- 


> 


...H^*V^ 


/ 


> 


tradicting  his  own  assertion  that  void  space  be  only  a  quantum, 
he  writes  on  p.  73  of  his  book  :  "  .1  vvai  dire  Ics  differences 
qualitative  sont  partout  dans  la  nature." 

Likewise,  every  sort  of  quantity  is  essential  both  to  the 
objective  and  to  the  subjective  datum.  The  indistinct  concrete 
form  of  quantum  (or  "  intensive  quantum  ")  which  is  the  necessary 
presupposition  of  the  discrete  distinctness,  is  essential  as  well  to 
coexistence  as  to  succession.  The  distinct  discrete  form  of 
quantum  is  essential  not  only  to  the  coacervation  of  multiplicitv 
(multiplicity  which  whether  objective  is  said  to  be  coexistent  or 
else  to  be  in  space,  and  whether  subjective  is  said  to  be  in 
mind),  but  also  to  the  distribution  on  the  line  of  time. 

The  form  of  numerableness  of  multiplicity  is  essential  as  well 
to  the  coexistent,  as  to  the  successive  data. 

10.  (d)  The  assertion  by  which  the  unity  of  Psyche  be 
in  every  way  excluding  multiplicity,  which  should  be  only 
proper  to  the  external  world,  does  not  hold. 

What  we  take  into  account  of  an  "  Idea  "  as  such,  is  only 
the  rhythm,  which  is  possessed  in  common  by  its  particularities 
of  every  timiC  and  place,  so  that  an  idea  appears  to  be  as  an 
indivisible  unity  transcending  space  and  time,  and  not  sub- 
dividirg  itself  into  the  different  points  of  them  both.  P^or  this 
reason,  not  only  the  ideas  of  space  and  time  themsevles  are 
thought  to  be  out  of  any  space  and  time,  but  the  law^  which 
rules  over  things,  is  thought  as  being  in  a  like  condition, 
neither  more  nor  less,  i.e.,  as  always  being  identical  to  itself, 
and  as  always  being  the  very  same  and  only  law  everywhere 
and  in  everv  time. 

But  one  particular  subjective  datum,  which  arises  in 
the  field  of  consciousness,  together  with  another  may  appear 
either  as  a  present  datum  close  to  the  other  present  one,  or 
as  the  successive  datum  of  a  preceding  one,  and  close  to  it. 
Just  as  it  happens  with  respect  to  the  objective  data,  that  are 
distinctly  referable  either  to  a  space  or  to  a  time,  so  as  to 
appear  as  being  multiplex,  i.e.,  either  coexisting  into  space,  or 
successively  distributed  on  the  line  of  time. 

The  solidarity  existing  among  the  subjective  particular 
data,  and  depending  on  the  unity  of  the  self  (into  which  they 
come  to  emerge  and  where  every  one  of  them  is  by  the  self 


t 


26 

apprehended  as  being  quite  distinct  from  every  other)  this 
solidarity  by  no  means  prevents  the  subjective  particular 
data  from  appearing  as  being  distinct  one  from  another;  so 
that  it  does  not  prevent  the  total  apprehension  of  them  from 
appearing  as  a  multiplicity,  just  as  it  happens  in  the  external 
nature.  The  essential  unity  of  the  external  nature,  bv  which 
one  thmg  is  existing  on  account  or  all  the  other  existing  and 
pre-existing  things,  by  no  means  prevents  any  particularity 
of  a  particular  datum  from  arising  in  the  field  of  nature  as 
a  thing  being  quite  different  from  all  of  the  others ;  although 
every  particularity  keeps  solidary  with  all  the  rest  of  nature. 

The  solidarity,  which  colleagues  the  cogitative  cosmos,  is 
not  different  from  the  solidarity  which  colleagues  the  rest  of  the 
cosmos,  because  the  former  cosmos  belongs  to  the  latter,  and 
it  cannot  be  also  proper  to  the  cogitative  world  what  is  proper 
to  the  greatest  one. 

Not  a  bit  of  it  (Bergson  would  here  reply).  When  several 
data  are  in  mind  together,  they  concert  tliemselves  either  into 
an  order  or  into  a  conceptual  specification,  so  that  by  becoming 
that  very  single  order  or  that  very  single  speciality  of  conception, 
they  can  no  more  appear  as  being  multiplicities  and  as  being 
the  ones  apart  from  the  others  ;  were  it  so,  Bergson  would  then 
continue,  the  same  would  also  be  true  with  regard  to  the 
external  multiplicities  that  can  no  longer  be  estimated  as  being 
many,  as  far  as  they  are  thought  together,  i.e.,  as  either  one 
order,  or  one  single  special  datum. 

To  which  we  may  reply  that  not  even  what  exists  outside 
the  subject  may  be  said  to  be  a  multiplicity :  not  five  data  may 
be  said  to  be  the  root,  the  trunk,  the  branches,  the  leaves,  the 
blossoms,  but  only  the  single  datum  of  the  tree  in  which  they 
are  set  in  their  order :  not  a  thousand  soldiers  are  on  drill  in  the 
camp,  but  only  the  simple  unity  of  the  battalion  constituted  by 
them,  the  bare  unity  of  the  universal  cosmos  and  not  the 
infinitely  many  things  harmonized  in  it.  And  let  the  same 
be  said  of  the  spacial  multiplicity,  because  in  length,  for 
instance,  the  lines  sum  up  into  the  inch,  the  inches  into  the 
foot,  the  feet  into  the  yard,  and  so  on  to  the  infinite  length. 

Should  then  Bergson  here  object  that  a  certain  succession 
of  notes  unifies  into  the  speciality  of  a  melody,  which  cannot  be 
but  its  own  unity,  it  would  be  easy  to  remark  that  in  this  case, 


> 


V^t 


I 


f 


( 
I 


27 

we  have  two  very  distinct  facts ;  the  fact  of  the  several  notes 
following  each  other  between  their  intervals  of  time,  and  the 
fact  of  the  agreable  effect  produced  by  the  rhythmical  shaking 
of  the  physiological  apparatus;  two  facts  well  distinguishable, 
the  one  from  the  other,  and  so  well,  that  while  the  second 
appears  to  be  a  unity,  the  first  appears  to  be  a  multiplicity. 
In  the  same  way,  if  I  put  into  a  sack  several  thousand  seeds  of 
corn,  and  after  having  put  the  sack  on  a  balance,  I  come  to 
know  the  weight  of  it,  I  get  the  two  facts  of  the  multiplicity 
of  the  seeds,  which  I  can  sum  up  one  after  another,  and  the  fact 
of  the  total  of  the  compound  weight  shown  by  the  balance,  a 
weight  whi^h  is  that  single  weight  without  any  distinction 
of  parts. 

And  let  it  not  be  objected  that  in  the  mental  datum,  its 
compounds  do  not  very  often  appear,  and  are  not  very  often 
apprehensible  :  just  the  same  happens  both  in  the  perception  of 
the  white  light  of  the  sun  and  in  general  in  the  conception  of 
the  abstract  idea,  and  so  on.  Just  the  same  should  be  said  with 
regard  to  the  material  objects  which  appear  to  be  simple, 
whereas  chemistry  (and  only  to  some  extent)  has  been  able  to 
demonstrate  their  being  compound  ;  just  as  psychology  has  been 
able  (and  only  to  some  extent)  to  demonstrate  that  the 
apparently  simple  data  of  cogitation  are,  on  the  contrary, 
compound. 

II.  And  we  will  insist  upon  the  case  of  the  melody,  a 
case  to  which  Bergson  appeals  in  order  to  explain  his  own  view 
on  the  subject.  To  do  so,  it  would  turn  out  profitable  to  an 
ulterior  unfolding  and  confirmation  of  the  deduction  we  set 
against  him. 

The  very  case  itself  of  melody  may  be  adduced  against  his 
assertion,  because  the  specification  resulting  into  a  melody  is 
dependent  on  time,  and  supposes  it;  for  should  the  compounding 
notes  coexist  into  space  {i.e.,  were  they  heard  together)  instead 
of  succeeding  through  times  they  would  give  a  different 
specification. 

As  we  have  already  pointed  out,  when  a  musician  has 
heard  a  melodic  phrase,  and  wiien  (by  reason  of  the  conscious 
resentment  of  that  speciality  of  rhythmical  consensus  which 
takes  place  in  his  auditory  apparatus  and  is  depending  on  the 
reciprocal  proportion  of  the  motions  of  the  several  tunes)  he  has 
appreciated  the  phrase  as  being  a  melody,  the  same  musician  is 


''X 


mi 


J 


28 

in  the  position  on  the  one  hand  of  recognizing  one  after  another 
the  various  single  notes  determinative  of  that  melodic  sentiment, 
and  on  the  other  hand  he  can  sign  them  on  a  piece  of  paper, 
giving  through  his  signs  the  precise  indication  of  the  proper 
duration  of  each  of  them.  In  doing  so,  of  course,  he  makes  use 
of  merely  cc^nventional  representative  signs  ;  he  uses  the  svmbol 
of  a  quaver,  which  is  different  from  that  of  a  semi -quaver, 
meaning  that  two  successive  semi-quavers  ought  to  last  as  long 
as  a  single  quaver,  i.e.,  that  while  one  of  your  fingers  is  pressing, 
one  after  another,  two  different  keys  of  an  organ,  another  finger 
must  be  kept  still  upon  its  own  key.  Therefore,  we  see  that  it 
is  a  possible  thing  to  conceive  intensity,  i.e.,  a  unitary  magnitude 
of  duration,  as  being  the  sum  of  lesser  durations,  which  may  be 
thought  to  be  parts  of  the  same  magnitude. 

But  in  the  symbolic  indication,  the  durations  are  signed  by 
means  of  spaces,  and  this  makes  Bergson  believe  that  a  duration 
(the  abstract  scheme  of  which  he  denies  to  be  possessed  by  our 
mind)  is  asserted  only  through  the  introduction  of  spacial 
intervals  between  every  data  of  a  succession. 

Duration  by  musicians  is,  indeed,  represented  by  means  of 
spaces,  that  is  true  ;  but  space  in  this  case  is  taken  only  as  a 
symbol,  just  as  it  is  the  case  when  tunes  are  represented  by 
means  of  written  signs,  which  are  but  symbols,  too,  not  being 
such  graphic  signs,  by  themselves,  sounds  at  all.  And  space 
serves  to  symbolise  time,  by  reason  of  the  analogy  existing 
between  them,  analogy  which  is  dependent  upon  one  of  the 
fundamental  laws  of  cogitation  ;  the  very  same  law  which 
reveals  itself  solemnly  in  the  making  of  language.  Owing  to 
the  analogy  between  space  and  time,  the  successive  data  may 
be  symbolized  by  those  that  are  coexistent  into  space,  just  as 
we  may  symbolise  the  musical  effect  through  the  visive  idea  of 
colour.  And  vice-versa  we  may  symbolise,  still  by  reason  of 
the  same  analogy,  a  pictorial  effect  by  means  of  an  acoustic 
idea  of  sound ;  in  the  same  way  we  symbolise  a  S[)acial 
magnitude  by  that  of  a  duration,  when  for  instance  we  speak 
of  a  distance  of  an  hour,  or  of  a  stone's  throw,  or  of  a  few  steps, 
and  so  on. 

12.  (e)  And  it  is  not  true  that  Positivism  ignores  and 
does  not  admit  the  two  psychological  fundamental  laws  of  the 
abbreviation  and  of  the  heterogeneity  of  purposes. 


<-    > 


29 

It  is  not  true.  Positivism,  on  the  contrary,  did  know  and 
profess  these  two  laws,  arriving  at  them  not  only  before  now, 
but  also  by  itself  and  not  through  the  teaching  of  any  one. 

On  the  law  of  abbreviation  in  cogitative  working,  I  spoke 
briefly  as  far  back  as  I  published  my  first  books  ('),  with  many 
details,  and  how  such  a  law  does  result  is  clearlv  shown  bv  me 
there,  where  I  treat  on  it  in  my  book  on  ''  Truth.''  (^)  To  prove 
what  I  am  saying,  it  will  suffice  to  transcribe  here  two  pieces  of 
the  headings  8  and  15  of  the  Chapter  XXII.  of  the  same  book. 

"Without  word,  no  science.  To  make  the  thing  clear,  let  us 
come  again  for  a  little  while  to  our  example  of  numeration. 
After  I  have  made  up  the  sum  of  some  given  units,  I  either  put 
some  sign  for  it,  or  I  say  "ten."  Whether  the  sign  be  either 
put,  or  seen,  or  thought  of,  and  whether  the  word  "  ten "  be 
thought  of,  or  uttered,  or  written  ;  in  each  of  these  cases  sign 
and  word  are  show^ing  the  operation  that  has  been  made  ;  and 
they  perform  their  office  in  such  a  way  that  their  ideas  sufiice 
to  afford  me  the  knowledge  which  I  am  in  want  of,  that  is  to 
say  that  the  counted  units  are  as  many  as  are  sufiicient  to 
compound  the  entity  which  they  constitute,  and  which  is  called 
a  decade.  To  afford  me  that  knowledge,  I  say  without  obliging 
me  to  think  anew,  at  the  present  moment  and  one  after  another 
distinctly  the  same  unities.  And  so  it  happens  that,  by  this 
gign  and  word,  and  by  reason  of  their  virtuality,  I  came  to 
possess  the  means  of  being  led,  should  I  need  it,  to  make  a  new 
the  operation,  which  I  have  symbolised  by  them.  The  above- 
mentioned  ideas  of  the  sign  and  word  are  sufficient  for  the 
named  purpose,  not  only  for  me,  but  also  for  whomsoever  who 
knows  the  meaning  of  them.  Just  the  same  happens  when,  after 
having  summed  up  ten  decades,  I  say  "  a  hundred  "  ;  and,  when 
having  summed  up  ten  hundreds,  I  say  ''one  thousand''  \  and 
when  having  summed  up  a  thousand  thousands,  I  say  "  one 
million.'' 

"After  this,  what  we  have  to  prove  about  science  will 
become  easy  and  clear,  namely,  that  with  respect  to  it  what 
we  have  remarked  about  Numeration  and  about  the  other 
analogous  facts  we  have  re-collected  together  with  it  holds 
good.     As  well   for  the  species  and  genera  of  the  descriptive 

(0  Especially  in  that  on  "  Perception,"  published  in  1882. 
(^)  Above  all  in  headings  XXII.  and  XXIII.     The  latter  of  them  has  this 
title  :  On  abbreviated  work. 


30 

sciences,  as  for  the  special  and  generic  laws  of  dynamic  sciences, 
as  for  the  titles  and  under-groups  and  superior  groups  of  the 
historical  and  statistical  sciences,  the  likeness  which  colleagues 
the  many  underlying  data,  is  to  be  found  by  beginning  from  the 
knowledge  of  every  single  datum  so  as  to  give  thus  place  to  the 
collation  of  their  communities,  collation  which  is  found  to  be 
in  them,  and  by  which  they  come  to  associate  one  with  another 
according  either  to  their  likeness,  coexistence  or  successiveness. 
The   association    of   many   distinct  data   (i.e.   their  synthetical 
idea)  is  then  marked  and  hxed  by  a  word,  which  is  apt  to  cause 
the  re-appearance  into  tlie  mind  of  the  mentioned  idea  in  its 
own  virtuality,  every  time  you  may  want  to  have  it.     Through 
having  thus  at  our  disposal  words  which  represent  associations 
having  the  same  degree  of  generalisation,  the  mental  work  is 
m  time  made  directly  by  means  of  these  same  associations  by 
searclung  in  each  of  them  what  they  possess  in  common  and  by 
wiiich  they  can  associate  together  into  a  larger  idea,  which  is 
then  also  fixed  by  a  word.     And  so  the  mental  work  proceeds 
further  on,  just  as  we  have  said  it  is  performed  in  the  case  of 
numeration.      So    that    when   a    most   general    idea    has    been 
reached,  and  wlien  it  is  countersigned  and  fixed  by  a  w^ord  like 
our  word  ''million''  of  numeration,  we  can  through  an   inverse 
order,   i.e.,   deductively,  proceed    from    this  word  to  recall  the 
words    (and    in   an   indistinct   way  their  relative   ideas)   which 
represent    the    underlying   generalities,   and    thus   we    can    go 
further  on  till  we  come  to  those  single  data,  from  which  the 
inductive  or  constructive  work  of  science  began.     Therefore,  if 
by  reason  of  what  we  have  said  in  the  foregoing  chapter  there 
is  no  doubt   that  science  consists  in  such  process  as  this,  our 
assertion,  referring  to  its  analogy  to  the  fact  of  numeration  and 
the    necessity   of   word    to    gain   science,   is    absolutely    firmly 
grounded  ;  just  as  the  assertion  that  speech  makes  possible  the 
scientific  work  by  abbreviating  it,  and  by  doing  so  in  the  seven 
ways,  which  I  point  out  in  the  next  chapter,  XXIII.,  stands  firm." 

And  with  the  law  of  the  heterogeneity  of  purposes  (as  they 
call  it)  I  have  dealt  many  a  time,  too,  in  my  books,  and  also 
treated  professedly  on  it  in  that  book  on  ''Perception,''  which 
has  been  quoted  many  times  in  these  pages,  a  book  where  you 
can  read,  for  instance,  the  following  passage  :    (')  "  As  a  material 


u 


, 


(')  Part  III.,  Paragraph  XX. 


31 

thing  produces  a  certain  effect  upon  the  aesthetic  taste  of  an 
artist,  likewise  it  may  happen  to  a  merely  mental  representation. 
An  artist,  to  whose  fancy  a  representation  that  causes  a  dis- 
gusting effect  upon  his  aesthetic  taste  has  occurred,  tries  to  get 
rid  of  it,  just  as  the  tongue  does  when  it  tries  to  get  rid  of 
disgusting  food.  And  the  contrary  happens  in  the  inverse  rase. 
An  aesthetically'  agreeable  fancy  is  cultivated,  just  as  food 
which  pleases  one's  tongue  is  turned  about  in  one's  mouth. 
When  an  artist  has  an  agreeable  fancy,  many  things  may 
happen.  The  fancy  can  be  found  to  be  aesthetically  defective 
in  some  parts  of  it,  and  the  defect  gives  way  to  the  convenient 
integration,  thanks  to  the  recalling  of  the  opportune  aestlietic 
conceptions,  which  are  already  possessed  by  the  artist  in  con- 
sequence of  his  education  in  art.  In  doing  which  the  artist 
does  as  the  cook  when,  after  having  prepared  some  food, 
he  tastes  it,  and,  on  finding  it  to  be  good  but  a  little  insipid, 
adds  a  little  salt  to  it.  Fancy  may  be  found  to  be  indistinct 
here  and  there,  and  this  produces  its  integration  in  a  way  which 
is  analogous  to  the  above-mentioned  one,  and  by  means  of  the 
completing  opportune  parts.  By  doing  so,  the  artist  does  as 
the  photographer  when  he  adds,  by  the  work  of  the  brush, 
the  unexpressed  strokes  on  the  photographic  picture.  May  fancy 
at  last  be  found  agreeable  to  the  aesthetic  taste  only  in  part  ; 
and  this  causes  the  substitution  of  beautiful  details  in  the  place 
of  those  that  are  not  such,  which  may  afterv.ards  lead  also  to 
a  total  reform  of  the  primitive  fancy  by  reason  of  the  newly 
found  parts,  that  may  in  their  turn  suggest  the  recall  of  some 
more  suitable  ones  and  tl^^  elimination  of  those,  too,  bv  which 
the  former  has  been  recalled.  And  so  the  mental  work  mav 
renovate  again  several  times,  and  till  the  result  be  an  adequate 
representation  to  the  demand  of  the  taste  of  the  artist,  who 
hungers  after  his  own  aesthetic  satisfaction,  in  which  case  it 
happens  to  the  artist,  just  like  it  happens  in  th.e  process  of 
improvement  of  a  mechanical  motor,  tliat  having  been  shaped 
in  a  certain  manner,  comes  at  last,  and  through  successive 
reforms,  to  acquire  a  quite  different  form  from  that  which  the 
first  inventor  had  given  it." 

And  by  all  this  I  have  meant  to  show  a  particular  case 
of  the  natural  making  according  to  that  same  cosmic  universal 
law,  on  which  1  treat  directly  from  the  Paragraph   X.  to   th3 


'     > 


V 


32 

XVIII  of  the  fourth  observation  of  my  book  on  "  The  Natural 
Making  "  ;  in  them,  to  the  question  on  where  we  might  observe 
its  working,  I  conclude  as  follows  :  (M  "  Evervwhere,  accordinjr 
to  the  same  law  and  with  the  same  facility,  as  well  in  the 
fleeting  thought  of  a  man  as  in  the  universe,  as  well  in  the 
tender  germ  of  an  oak  leaf  as  in  the  cosmic  system,  as  well  in  the 
microscopic  crystal  of  snow  as  in  the  whole  of  the  solar  system." 


I. 


III. 

I.  And  it  is  said  at  last  :  "  The  Positivist,  by  attributing  to 
the  psychical  fact  any  more  than  the  pure  representativeness,  does 
not  perceive  that  the  latter  is  essentially  united  to  Sentiment  and 
Will,  in  both  of  ivhich,  generally  speaking,  stands  the  reason  of 
psychical  phenomenism,  and  spjaking  in  a  particular  way,  the 
reason  of  the  ethical  one.  That  free  spontaneity  in  view  of  an 
end,  ivhich  is  peculiar  to  the  psychical  phenomenism,  cannot,  con- 
sequently, be  admitted  by  the  posit ivist,  because  he  proceeds  from 
the  inadmissible  preconception,  that  the  above-mentioned  pheno- 
menism be  entirely  depending  upon  the  physical  one. 

It  is  false  that  to  psychical  facts,  the  Positivist  attributes 
only  represenlativity  and  that  he  is  unable  either  to  see  the 
connection  with  Representativity  Sentiment  and  Will,  which 
there  is  in  those  facts,  or  to  admit  the  dependence  of  the 
psychical  and  ethical  phenomenism  on  this  connection. 

Clumsily  false.  Just  quite  the  reverse  is  the  psychological 
ground  on  which  all  the  now  many  books  of  mine  rest,  no  one 
excepted.  And  on  this  point  the  doctrine,  for  instance,  I  teach 
in  them  on  the  "  impulsiveness  of  idea  "  is  notorious.  And  how- 
many  more  things  on  the  subject  has  Positivism  been  able  to 
teach,  and  how  much  better  than  our  opponents  had  ever  been 
able  to  do  ! 

How  funnv,  indeed  !  While  on  the  relation  existing:  among- 
Representativeness,  Sentiment,  and  Will,  Positivism  offers  a 
theory,  which  may  serve  to  complete  and  to  better  the  theory  of 
of  its  opponents ;  the  same  opponents  lay  against  it  the  charge 
of  not  admitting  its  own  theory  ! 


(»)  Phil.  Works,  \o\.  II.,  p.  286. 


33 

2.  About  the  dependence  of  the  ethical  phenomenism  on 
the  above  mentioned  relation,  I  have  sufficiently  discoursed  in 
the  writing  published  by  the  Rivista  di  Filosofia  e  Scienze 
Af!ini  {')  under  the  title  ''The  Novel  Philosophy  of  T'a/«es,"  and 
I  leave  to  it  what  has  to  do  with  this  subject. 

We  have  now  to  add  some  considerations  on  the  psychical 
phenomenism  taken  in  general. 

About  this  topic,  our  opponents  fix  some  essential  points 
that  agree  with  the  doctrines  I  profess  in  all  my  books,  and  that 
in  consequence  appear  to  belong  to  Positivism  before  they  were 
belonging  to  the  doctrine  of  our  opjponents.  These  points  are  the 
subjective  fact  of  sensation  (what  I  call  "  Perceptive  Integra- 
tion "),  the  logical  principles  ;  the  initial  and  indifferentiated 
representation  preceding  the  psychological  diblemma  (^)  ;  the 
form  by  which  the  object  is  apprehended,  as  being  anything  else 
but  the  form  of  the  subject  of  feeling  itself  into  itself. 

But  however,  what  an  imperfect  and  erroneous,  not  to  say 
absurd,  use  they  make  of  these  principles  ! 

In  a  word,  in  the  place  of  an  incompetent  Positivism,  our 
opponents  wanted  to  substitute  that  Modern  Idealism  thev 
intend  to  represent,  but,  on  the  contrary,  when  they  speak 
rightly,  they  do  nothing  but  say  what  Positivism  has  already 
taught;  and  when  neglecting  what  it  has  further  on  taught, 
they  draw  science  back  from  the  point  to  which  Positivism 
has  forwarded  it. 

3.  And  let  us  see  it. 

As  it  is  above  reminded  (^),  I  have  many  a  time  expressed 
myself  about  the  absolute  cognoscitive  value  pertaining  to 
sensation.  "  Sensation  consists  in  the  consciousness  of  having  it 
and  hence  in  the  absolutely  necessary  affirmation  of  its  own 
being  for  itself  and  independently  from  anything  else.  Our 
opponents,  though  remembering  that  the  same  thing  is  professed 
by  pragmatists,  yet  deny  the  evident  truth  of  it  by  remarking 
that  the  affirmation  to  be  valid  must  rest  on  a  referment  of  it 
to  a  logical  principle;  but  they  fail  to  say  on  which  principle  ^nd 
how  it  might  be  apt  to  justifiy  the  same  affirmation  since  they 

(^)  In  the  Number  of  October-December,  1907. 

Q  Upon  the  meaning  of  this  term  as  it  is  intended  by  me,  see  my 
writing  upon  "The  Quadruple  Problem  of  the  Theory  of  Knowledge"  in 
Phil.  Works,  Vol.  X.,  p.  215  and  foil. 

O  I.,  3  c.         . 


a!j 


y 


34 

do  not  think  the  simple  arising  of  a  sensation  in  the  field  of 
consciousness  to  be  sufficient  for  such  a  purpose ;  and  upon  the 
whole  remaining  in  a  perplexity,  that  induces  the  shadow  of 
scepticism  also  upon  the  very  primitive  subjective  datum. 

Logical  principles,  by  our  opponents,  are  not  only  appointed 
to  act  a  very  great  and  principal  office  in  the  psychical  pheno- 
menism ;  but  they  are  also  considered  to  be  the  reason  of  every 
form  of  being  and  doing.  Though  they  do  not  by  this  affirm 
anything  that  would  not  be  known  before  the  coming  of  Modern 
Idealism,  our  opponents  are  certainly  right  in  thinking  so  ;  but 
they  are  in  the  wrong  by  their  not  being  able  to  tell  us 
what  these  principles  are  in  themselves,  and  where  they 
come  from,  and  why  they  can  guarantee  their  being  themselves, 
and  by  themselves,  the  reason  of  every  being  and  doing.  By 
their  referring,  without  any  foundation,  to  the  logical  principles 
(which  they  gloomily  call  ''What  is  thinkable"  and '' not  sen- 
sible "  and  "not  transcendental  ")  our  opponents  still  remain  on 
the  ground  of  scepticism,  without  perceiving  that  Positivism 
has  found  out  the  above  named  foundation  ;  that  it  has  already 
taught  what  are  the  logical  principles,  and  how  they  make 
themselves  ;  and  why  they  can  guarantee  as  well  what  is  already 
in  existence,  as  what  is  becoming  into  it;  by  demonstrating 
that,  after  all  analysis,  they  only  consist  in  sensations,  that 
organise  themselves  into  cogitative  rhythms  ;  which  rhythms 
are  true,  because,  in  the  end,  they  are  but  the  very  rhythms  of 
that  very  experience  by  which  they  are  produced. 

4.  Our  opponents  are  in  the  right  as  well  when  thinkmg  the 
representation  to  be  at  first  indifferentiated,  and  afterwards" 
bisected  into  the  two  contrary  representations  of  Self  and 
Not-Self.  But  what  the  process  of  dimidiation  consists  in, 
they  cannot  tell  ;  so  that  the  usual  scepticism  also  here  re- 
mains as  regards  the  external  representations.  Positivism  could 
get  them  out  of  it  if,  instead  of  slandering  this  doctrine  by  mis- 
cognizing  the  services,  it  has  rendered  independently  from  their 
boasted  Modern  Idealism,  they  would  only  try  to  know  it  such 
as  it  really  is.  As  I  lately  explained,  epitomizing  my  theories 
in  my  recent  writing  against  immanentism,  empiriocriticism 
and  solipsism  under  the  title  "  The  Quadruple  Problem  of  the 
Theory  of  Knowledge''  ('),  the  process,  leading  to  bisection,  is 


4. 


I 


'I     '  y 


(')  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  X.,  p.  203  and  foil. 


35 

///  that  of  the  *'  experiment  "  adjoined  to  the  simple  "  observation  "  ; 
the  experiment  by  which  the  mass  of  the  external  sensations 
comes  to  distinguish  itself  from  the  mass  of  the  internal  ones 
and  to  appear  as  being,  opposite  to  it  in  such  a  way  that  while 
we  find  to  be  in  the  former  mass  the  external  entity,  i.e.,  the 
heterosynthesis  {i.e.,  the  Object)  we  find  to  be  in  the  latter  mass 
the  internal  entity,  i.e.,  the  autosynthesis  {i.e.,  the  Subject  or 
the  Self).  That  very  Self  which  to  our  opponents  remains  a 
mystery,  an  accommodating  mystery  to  which  they  can  attri- 
bute their  enigmatical  production  of  the  logical  principles ; 
and  by  which  they  have  no  hand  in  troubling  the  feelings  of 
those  people  that  are  still  jealous  of  the  relics  of  the  meta- 
physical atavism. 

5.  And  our  opponents  speak  rightly,  at  last,  when  pro- 
fessing the  form  by  which  we  apprehend  the  object  to  be  but 
the  very  form  by  which  the  subject  feels  itself  in  itself.  But 
being  led  out  of  the  way  by  the  doctrine,  according  to  which 
quiddity  is  a  distinguishing  trait  of  cogitation  and  quantum  of 
the  object  (a  doctrine  we  have  in  this  writing  already  demon- 
strated to  be  false),  they  come  to  contradict  themselves  in  the 
most  evident  way,  because  they  end  by  maintaining,  that  know- 
ledge comes  to  be  objective  by  getting  rid  of  the  qualitative 
impressions  of  intuition.  To  gain  the  knowledge  of  the 
exterior  world,  I  have  at  my  disposal  nothing  else  but  the 
quiddity  of  intuition  and  I  get  rid  of  it ;  and  where  from  then  does 
the  quantum  of  the  object  spring  out  ?  And  where  from  does  its 
representativeness,  which  has  been  previously  said  to  be  only 
afforded  by  the  form  of  the  subject  of  feeling  itself  in  itself 
spring  out  ?  And,  on  this  occasion  too.  Positivism  could  have 
been  able  to  instruct  them  !  In  the  objective  representation, 
there  is  found  to  be  the  quantum,  because  it  is  previously  found 
to  be  in  the  subjective  one.  In  the  objective  representation  the 
subjective  quiddity  disappears  only  apparently,  and  this  hap- 
pens on  account  of  the  abstractive  process,  which,  if  it  is  taking 
away  some  of  the  characteristic  properties  of  representation, 
does  not  at  the  same  time  however,  suppress  the  whole  of  them, 
but  it  leaves  some  ;  and  these,  although  weakened,  yet  keep 
still  qualitative  as  are  all  the  others. 

How  candid  (besides  being  incongruous  with  their  prin- 
ciples) is  indeed  the  illusion   of  our  Idealists  !     The  physicist 


V^ 


36 


37 


u 


objectifies  the  luminoufness  by  putting  out  of  the  subject 
nothing  else  but  the  ethereal  fluid  and  its  vibrations  ;  the  object 
of  the  mathematician  is  the  pure  space,  the  pure  time,  the  pure 
motion,  and  so  on.  But  after  all  these  very  abstract  represen- 
tations of  the  physicist  and  mathematician,  are  themselves 
supplied  by  the  very  material  of  the  sensations  of  the  subject,  a 
material  that  is  always  a  qualitative  one  too. 

Not  to  mention  that  the  object  of  science  is  not  necessarily 
confined  within  the  bounds  of  the  above  named  abstractions, 
since  physics,  for  instance,  considers  apart  one  from  another  the 
data  of  gravity,  light,  heat,  electricity,  and  magnetism  ;  and 
biology  the  data  of  the  living  organisms;  and  sociology  the 
datum  of  the  human  society  ;  and  so  on. 

There  is  some  more  than  this  to  be  added.  As  our 
opponents  have  (not  b  fore  Positivists,  however)  acknow- 
ledged, the  psychical  fact  essentially  consists  in  Sentiment 
(affective  and  vol i live)  and  Representation.  Although  this  be 
true,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  psychical  fact  should  entirely 
lose  its  own  sentimental  aspect,  when  we  get  through  it,  the 
knowledge  of  the  exterior  world.  The  contrary  is  just  the 
truth,  a  truth  that  our  opponents  who  have  not  yet  got  an 
adequate  idea  of  the  connection  existing  in  psychical  pheno- 
menon between  Representation  and  Sentiment,  have  never 
suspected  ;  who  keep  on  considering  them  in  the  same  manner 
in  which  they  both  were  considered  by  the  old  philosophy,  i.e., 
as  if  Representation  and  Sentiment  were  two  coupled  products 
of  two  different  faculties,  while  they  are,  on  the  contrary,  two 
indivisible  aspects  of  a  single  product. 

As  I  said  in  the  writing  above  quoted  on  "  The  Novel  Philo- 
sophy of  Values  C)  "  (when  recapitulating  in  it  a  doctrine  that  I 
have  always  professed)  "  the  representativeness  of  the  psychical 
fact  is  that  one  very  speciality  itself  of  the  sentiment  in  which 
it  consists.  And  by  making  use  of  this  speciality  in  the  objec- 
tive representations,  its  sentimental  aspect  is  yet  preserved  in 
this  sense,  that,  although  it  is  not  considered  to  be  the  effect 
caused  by  the  object  in  the  subject,  nevertheless  it  is  considered 
as  being,  as  for  the  object,  the  productive  entity  of  the  object 
itself.  Sugar  for  the  knower  is  that  external  sweetness  (or 
cause)  that  produces  that  internal  sweetness   (or  effect).     And 


(*)  Number  ii. 


let  the  same  be  said  about  the  whole  of  the  representations 
should  you  want  to  analyze  them  one  after  another;  should 
they  be  even  reduced  to  the  utmost  of  their  abstractness." 

6.  But  on  the  same  topic  of  the  psychical  phenomenism 
taken  in  general,  our  opponents  offer  some  other  doctrines,  and 
quite  discordant  from  those  of  Positivism,  and  which  do  not 
absolutely  hold.  So  that,  while  aiming  at  correcting  our  doc- 
trine, they  end  by  drawing  the  psychological  science  back  from 
that  point  to  which  Positivism  had  lifted  it. 

Some  other  doctrines,  I  say,  being  discordant  from  those  of 
Positivism,  namely,  that  the  psychical  phenomenism  is  not 
altogether  depending  on  physical  phenomenism,  and  that  they 
both  differ  from  each  other,  by  reason  of  the  free  spontaneity 
{i.e.,  the  free  attitude  to  evolve  itself  not  fatally,  but  in  view  of 
an  end  to  be  selected  in  an  arbitrary  way)  which  is  peculiar  to 
the  former. 

These  doctrines  are  founded  :  Firstly  :  On  the  transcendency 
existing  between  the  psychical  and  the  physical  fact.  Secondly  : 
On  the  qualitative  nature  of  the  former  and  the  opposite  quanti- 
tative nature  of  the  latter.  Thirdly  :  On  the  indifference  of  the 
physical  energy  towards  the  specifical  diversities  of  the  psychi- 
cal emergences.  Fourthly  :  On  the  insufficiency  of  the  material 
elements  which  are  few  in  comparison  to  the  illimited  conscious 
productions.  Fifthly  :  On  the  causation  determined  by  a  purpose 
being  quite  different  from  that  which  is  merely  a  mechanical 
i  one. 

7.  By  making  an  argument  out  of  the  transcendency 
between  the  psychical  and  the  physical  datum,  our  opponents 
not  only  rely  upon  that  science  by  which  Descartes  asserted* 
that  the  extent  of  matter  could  not  have  any  influence  over  the 
inextension  of  thought  and  vice-versa,  but  also  they  forget 
j  what  they  yet  profess  ;  that  is  to  say  that  the  extention  does  not 
afford  the  metaphysical  essence  of  what  we  call  the  body  be- 
cause it  too  is  nothing  but  a  thought  of  ours,  just  is  such  what- 
soever other  appearance,  be  it  only  a  subjective  one. 

This  being  granted,  it  descends  from  it  that  what  exists 
shows  itself  under  different  forms,  according  to  the  different 
sorts  of  sensations  through  which  it  is  apprehended  ;  so  as  to 
be  said  an  extent,  when  representing  itself  through  an  external 
sensation  of  such  a  form  ;  while  when  apprehended  through  a 


J 


38 

sensation  that  be  not  of  such  a  form,  it  is  said  to  be  an  inexten- 
sion  ;  although  it  be  always  a  matter  of  the  very  same  being. 
Just  in  that  very  manner  by  which  a  body  is  considered  to  be 
just  the  same  thing  that  through  the  touch  appears  to  be 
(either  in  stillness  or  in  motion)  an  extent  ;  through  the  sight,  a 
colour  ;  through  the  hearing,  a  sound  ;  through  the  smelling,  an 
odour ;  through  the  taste,  a  flavour.  And,  likewise,  to  the 
body,  which  keeps  remaining  the  same  one,  we  will  similarly 
attribute,  together  with  the  different  sensations  we  can  get  out 
of  it,  the  variations  having  rise  in  it;  and  this  very  varying 
will  be  understood  as  corresponding  to  the  interior  varying  of 
the  being,  which  we  apprehended  as  the  same  body;  to  this 
varying  which  will  be  then  considered  the  ratio  of  the 
experienced  variation  itself. 

To  this,  however,  they  lay  two  objections  :  The  first  :  that, 
by  reasoning  in  this  way,  we  start  from  a  metaphysical  precon- 
ceit.  The  second  :  that  the  psychical  phenomenon  belongs  to  an 
order  of  being  which  does  not  identify  itself  with  the  material 
one,  although  the  former  be  always  accompanied  by  the  latter. 

To  eliminate  the  first  objection  I  will  repeat  here  what  I 
have  written  on  another  occasion  (')  :  "Knowledge  is  gained 
by  means  of  particular  sensations.  These  sensations  are  not 
only  singly  specialized  into  each  one  of  their  acts,  but  are  also 
similar  one  to  another  by  different  degrees.  The  likeness  is 
greater  among  those,  that  from  being  afforded  by  the  various 
organs  of  sense,  appear  to  be  classified  into  as  many  groups  as 
are  in  number  their  same  organs.  The  likeness  is  only  great 
among  those,  that  from  having  been  produced,  on  the  one  side> 
by  the  external  or^i^^ans,  present  the  character  of  materiality ; 
and  those  that,  from  having  been  produced,  on  the  other  side, 
by  the  internal  organs,  present  the  character  of  immateriality. 
The  likeness,  at  last,  is  less  among  the  universal  mass  of  all  the 
sensations,  because  the  likeness,  in  this  case,  only  is  dependent 
on  the  fact  of  their  being  all  of  them  an  affirmation  of  Being, 
an  afhrmation  so  much  essential  to  a  sensation,  th  it  to  think  of 
it  as  being  improvided  of  affirmation,  would  be  absolutely 
absurd. 

(*)  In   my  writing   under  the    title   "Metaphysical    Monism   and   Scientific 
Monism,^'  Phil,  Works,  Vol.  IX.,  pp.  450-433. 


»     1    t 


^ 


59 

To  the  likeness  depending  on  the  arising  of  sensations  from 
the  various  organs  of  senses,  follows  the  affirmation  of  the  like- 
ness, which  is  to  be  referred  to  all  sensations  that  are  arisen  by 
any  one  of  such  organs.  To  the  likeness  dependent  on  their 
externality  or  interiority,  follows  the  affirmation,  on  the  one 
side,  of  the  material  entity,  and  of  the  psychical  entity  on  the 
other.  To  the  likeness  depending  on  their  being  sensations  all 
of  them,  follows  the  sole  and  universal  affirmation  of  the  Being 
(ro^  Oi;) ;  and  behold  the  monistic,  scientific,  positive  and  not 
at  all  metaphysical  conception  to  which  we  were  to  arrive  ! 

"  That  which  exists "  we  said  but  existent  in  its  own 
intuitively  perceptive  conception,  that  is  pregnant  of  every 
reality,  and  not  in  the  refiexively  reduced  conception  of  the 
bare  note  possessed  in  common  by  sensations  ;  a  note  having 
been  considered  apart  from  every  specification  of  reality. 

And  hence,  that  ivhich  exists  in  a  concrete  manner,  i.e.,  the 
maximum  among  the  Indistinct,  into  which  all  the  possible 
Distincts  are  gathered;  as  well  those  which  have  already 
arisen  ;  as  those,  which  did  not  and  are  still  unknown  ;  but  not 
that  abstraction  which  is  mentally  distinguished  out  of  the 
generical  idea  of  being ;  that  abstraction,  which  is  said  to  be 
the  supreme  of  the  purely  subjective  forms. 

And,  hence,  that  which  is  persistent  in  subsisting  and  inces- 
sant in  operating.  A  present  datum  whose  ratio  is  found  to  be 
in  its  own  past,  a  datum  which  is,  in  the  same  time,  the  reason 
of  every  future.  The  whole  \vhich  is  subsisting  as  being  a  uni- 
versal only  substratum  lying  under  an  infinity  of  coexistences 
and  successions,  which  are  as  well  correlative  among  them  as 
in  a  different  way,  expressive  of  the  essence  of  it ;  either  as 
being  a  substance  or  as  being  a  force  say  ;  lying  into  every 
thing  and  every  fact.  The  whole,  that  shows  itself  in  the 
psychical  effects,  in  which  effects,  in  a  corresponding  manner, 
the  formations  both  of  the  heterosynthesis  (or  of  the  Matter) 
and  of  the  autosynthesis  (or  of  the  Psyche)  come  to  emerge. 

The  data  of  heterosynthesis  and  the  autosynthesis  are  true 
indications  of  this  essence  and  not  at  all  mere  symbols  .... 
Quantity,  to  the  Mathematician  that  is  calculating  it,  is  not  a 
metaphysical  datum  (i.e.,  a  trascendent  entity  by  itself),  but  it  is 
a  simple  relative  of  what  we  think  and  mean  when  saying  that 
ivhich  exists.     Let  the  same  be  said  as  respects  the  Somatic  pheno- 


*    . 


-  .  ».«»•••  .  ' 


^ 


40 

menon  of  the  Physicist,  the  stechiological  one  of  the  Chemist, 
the  vital  one  of  the  Biologist.  Therefore  they  do  not  work  on 
the  supposition  of  a  metaphysical  datum,  but  they  assume  a 
scientific  one,  i.e.,  supplied  by  the  observation  and  by  the 
experiment  of  fact.  And  when  they  are  referring  thus  to  their 
own  substratum  of  matter  and  force,  their  referment  is  still  a 
scientific  one  ;  because  to  these  data  of  fact  of  the  heterosyn- 
thesis,  we  find  to  be  connected,  according  to  experience,  either 
the  quantitative,  or  the  stechiological,  or  the  vital  datum.  Tn 
like  manner  are  scientific  as  well  as  the  autosynthesis  and  the 
heterosynthesis  of  the  philosopher  ;  because  they  are  supplied  by 
the  observation  of  the  fact  of  Psyche  ;  and  scientific  is  also 
his  referment  of  autosynthesis  and  heterosynthesis  to  that  only 
substratum  that  is  thought  and  meant  as  being  that  which  is 
existent ;  because  the  two  syntheses  are  found  to  be  in  connection, 
according  to  the  exigence  of  experience,  with  this  common 
concrete  Being. 

Metaphysical  (and,  scientifically,  not  able  to  be  supported) 
are,  on  the  contrarv,  all  the  monistic  data  of  Materialism, 
Idealism,  Pampsyhicsm,  Here-after,  Noumenon,  Unknowable, 
because  of  their  being  considered  as  transcendental  entities  by 
tliemselves ;  whereas  they  are,  instead,  nothing  else,  but  as 
many  distinguishable  moments  of  that  scientific  and  knowable 
datum  of  which  we  have  spoken,  i.e.,  of  what  is  thought  and 
meant  as  being  thattvhich  exists.  The  Matter  of  the  Materialist, 
in  fact,  is  only  the  moment  caught  out  of  the  heterosynthesis  ; 
the  Mentality  of  Idealists,  is  only  the  moment  caught  out  of  the 
autosynthesis ;  the  physiopsychical  Atom  of  Pampsychists  is 
only  the  absurdity  of  the  identification  of  those  two  moments 
which,  as  such,  are  in  opposition  one  to  the  other;  the  Here- 
after of  Littre,  the  Noumenon  of  Kant,  the  Unknowable  of 
Spencer,  are  nothing,  but  that  Indistinct  which  is  found  to 
be  in  the  conception  of  what  is  thought  and  meant  as  being  that 
which  exists  ;  of  this  indefinitely  distinguishable  Indistinct 
which,  wliile  keeping  itself  not  distinct,  does  not  turn  out  to  be 
the  unknowable,  but  only  the  unknown." 

9.  And  let  us  come  to  the  second  objection,  by  which, 
while  they  admit  that  materiality  is  infalliby  underlying 
psychicalty  they  do  not  yet  admit  that  psychical  and  physical 
phenomenism  be  coincident  between  them  by  reason  of  that 
substratum,  which  is  common  to  them. 


y 


\ 


41 

Our  opponents  lay  before  us  this  second  objection  support- 
ing it  by  means  of  that  "  Philosophy  of  Contingency,^'  which, 
having  been  firstly  introduced  by  a  book  (^)  of  Emilus  Boutroux, 
is  now  the  fashion  of  the  day. 

Savs  Boutroux  :  *'  In  the  universe  there  are  to  be  distin- 
guished  several  worlds  forming  several  planes  laid  one  oi'er  an- 
other (^)  ;  at  the  bottom,  there  is  the  world  of  Possibilities  and, 
over  it,  the  Being  (^) ;  over  this  the  Matter  (*),  and  over  it  the 
Bodies  (^) ;  over  these  the  Living  Beings  (^) ;  over  which,  at 
last,  on  the  apex  of  the  whole  is  throned  the  Mind  ('). — 
Every  form  of  the  Being  is  the  preparation  of  a  superior  form  {^) : 
that  is  to  say,  that  the  beings  afford  each  other  mutual  sup- 
port ;  the  inferior  ones  being  existent  not  only  for  themselves, 
but,  also  in  order  to  afford  to  the  superior  ones  the  conditions 
of  their  existence  and  improvement ;  these  in  their  turn,  in 
order  to  lift  the  inferior  ones  to  a  level  of  perfection,  that  it 
would  be  to  them  impossible  to  reach  by  themselves  (^).  But 
the  inferior  beings  are  not  apt  to  transform  themselves  into  the 
superior  ones  ;  because  if  these  (^°)  find  into  those  their  own 
stuff,  they  do  not,  however,  find  these  their  own  forms  (^*). 
Hence  the  existence  of  the  superior  degrees  of  the  being,  is 
not  necessitated  by  the  existence  of  the  inferior  ones  ('^)  but  it 
is  an  epigenesis  C^)  determinated  by  a  free  creative  action  ('^) ; 
hence  the  contingency  of  the  epigenesis  itself  (^^),  and  creator  of 
the  essence  and  of  the  existence  is  God  Q^)  a  perfect,  necessary 
and  free  being  ('*). 

10.  I  never  failed  to  wonder  at  the  possibility  of  conceiv- 
ing, at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  an  ill-timed  theory  of 
creation  like  this ;  and  still  more  I  am  surprised  at  realizing 

1    that  such  a  theory  can  find  followers  in  the  twentieth  century, 

*    too. 

According  to  this  theory,  while  in  the  world  the  essences  are 
found  to  be  irreducibly  dissimilar  and  not  yielding  one  out  of 
the  other  and  only  laid  the  one  over  another ;   in  God  (wherein 

(')  "De  la  contingency  des  lots  dc  la  nature.''     I  make  use  of  the  V.  Edition, 
Paris,  1905. 

(2)  p.  132.  («)  p.  76.  C°)  p.  138.  n  p.  157- 

e)  p.  15-     •     o  p-  98.  Q')  p.  133.         n  p- 157- 

Op.  43-  Op.  142.  e')p.  133.  (OP-157. 

e)  p.  62.  o  p.  143.         n  p.  133.         n  p.  156. 


42 


<--l> 


43 


they  must  be,  since  it  is  said  by  our  opponents  that  they  come 
from  Mim)  these  essences  ought  to  unify  by  themselves,  so  as  to 
constitute  the  absolutely  only  essence  of  God  ;  and  it  must  be 
necessarily  so  ;  otherwise  they  ought  to  suppose  a  being  that 
were  superior  to  God  ;  a  being  making,  in  God,  that  same  con- 
tingent unification  that  is  said  by  them  to  be  made  by  Him  in 
the  world  ;  and  after  having  supposed  such  a  being,  they  ought 
to  do  so  for  another  that  should  make  the  same  unification  in 
this  same  mentioned  superior  being  ;  and,  after,  to  do  the  same 
for  another  again,  and  so  infinitely  on  without  any  possibility, 
therefore,  of  a  real  existence  for  such  a  being. 

In  consequence,  it  is  admitted  that,  in  general,  the  essences 
above-mentioned  can  by  themselves  unify  into  the  absolutely 
only  essence  of  a  single  being.  And  why  not  then  into  the 
world  itself  directly  ? 

Ah  !  the  scientific  atavism  !  Always  the  same  !  Making 
out  of  a  mere  mental  abstraction  a  concrete  metaphysical 
entity !  Opium  is  a  body,  and  as  such  it  has  nothing  but  the 
properties  of  a  body,  heavy,  extended,  shaped.  And  how,  then, 
one  asks,  does  it  happen  that  it  makes  you  sleep  ?  It  is  easily 
explained.  Think  of  that  reality,  which  is  called  the  sopori- 
ferous  power ;  place  it  over  the  same  body,  and,  behold,  all  is 
made  clear  !  It  is  not  the  body  of  opium  that  causes  one  to  fall 
asleep,  but  the  slumberous  power  that  has  been  placed  into  it 
and  kept  there  ! 

And,  now,  a  question  comes  to  the  point  ;  by  what  reason 
has  not  Boutroux,  who  employs  a  certain  number  of  generalities, 
in  order  to  make  out  of  them  as  many  essences,  being  irreducible 
one  into  another  (possibility,  being,  matter,  body,  life,  thought), 
does  not  do  the  same  w^ith  all  the  species  since  these,  too,  are 
irreducible  one  into  another  like  the  genera  are  ? 

Much  more  logical  was  Aristotle,  who  supposed  so  many 
metaphysical  entities  (his  "  Forms ")  as  are  in  number  the 
species  themselves  ;  and  still  more  coherent  was  Plato,  who  sup- 
posed an  entity  for  every  artificial  species,  too  ;  such  as  would 
be  for  us,  a  pipe  and  a  toothpick. 

II.  And  what  should  we  say,  since  the  same  general  enti- 
ties, instead  of  being  opposed  to  each  other,  are  nothing  but 
creations  of  the  very  thought  that  posits  itself  as  being  the  only 
same  essence  for  all  of  them  ? 


' 


' 


And  what  should  we  say,  since,  in  consequence  of  the  distin- 
guishing themselves  objectively  of  the  beings,  according  to 
infinitesimal  degrees,  as  well  as  on  the  line  of  space  (as  having 
already  become)  as  on  that  of  time  (as  becoming)  it  is  abso- 
lutely impossible  to  determine  the  bounds  witliin  which  they 
cease  to  be  a  certain  being  and  begin  to  be  another  ? 

And  what  can  we  say  since  anything  whatever  is  what 
it  is  only  by  power  of  that  same  whole,  which  is  that  Indis- 
tinct wherein  the  thing  is  found  to  be  one  Distinct  of  it? 
Of  that  same  whole  that  reflects  itself  into  every  being  and 
wherein  every  being  is  found  to  be  reflected  ?  So  that  at  last 
the  genera  set  in  a  row,  like  overlaid  essences,  do  not  turn  to  be 
anything  but  infinitesimal  gradations  of  distinctions  that  follow 
one  another  into  the  infinitely  incessant  virtuality  of  the  sole 
concreteness  of  the  Indistinct  that  underlies  the  whole.'' 

And  we  can  see  it  in  the  fact  of  the  psychical  phenomenism 
which,  for  us,  is  here,  the  fact  that  matters  more.  But,  in  order 
to  speak  briefly  about  an  argument  that  would  require  a  book 
to  be  conveniently  treated,  and  confining  ourself  to  only  sug- 
gest to  those  who  are  willing  to  guess  the  much  that  is  missing 
for  the  completion,  I  will  here  quote  the  beginning  of  my 
Introduction  to  the  writing  on  "  The  Making  and  Dynamics  of 
Psyche.''  (')  ''Out  of  the  egg  the  animal  is  developed  in  all  its 
organs  and  in  all  its  functions;  just  as,  out  of  the  seed,  the  vege- 
table is  developed  in  all  that  constitutes  and  makes  it.  As  the 
heat  of  the  sun,  by  communicating  itself  to  a  mass  of  wax, 
softens  it,  and,  on  the  contrary,  by  doing  the  same  to  a  mass  of 
mud,  hardens  it ;  and,  in  general,  as  the  force  of  the  surround- 
ing natu.e  determines  different  effects,  according  to  the 
difference  of  the  thing  to  which  it  applies  itself,  in  the  same 
way,  this  very  force,  by  operating  upon  the  seed  of  the  vege- 
table, determines  the  making  of  the  phytological  organism  that 
comes  out  of  it ;  and,  by  operating  upon  the  egg  of  the  animal, 
determines  the  making  of  the  zoological  organism  that  comes 
out  of  it  ;  and,  by  operating  upon  the  egg  of  a  given  species,  it 
determines  the  making  of  the  zoological  organism  of  that  very 
species  and  not  of  any  other.  The  various  formations  gained 
by  this  way,  therefore,  do  not  represent  directly,  what  is 
in  itself  the  natural  force,  that  operates  to  determine  them  ;  but 


(1)  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  IX.,  pp.  127-129. 


|K\ 


V 


i 


44 

only  the  peculiarity  of  the  product  of  its  action  upon  the  thing 
to  which  it  was  applied,  of  this  product,  that,  as  such,  is  not  to 
be  met  anywhere  but  in  this  very  same  thing." 

"  The  natural  making  by  effecting  itself  in  the  said  manner, 
comes  to  have  in  itself,  what  is  required  for  its  own  existence 
and  action  ;  to  have  it,  in  that  very  form,  which  is  characteristic 
of  its  own  species  ;  and  so  exactly  characteristic,  that  (as  it  is 
easilv  understood,  because,  once  given  the  cause,  we  must  neces- 
sarily have  the  effect)  the  teleologists  think  that  the  precedences 
are  wanted  and  predisposed  on  purpose  in  view  of  an  issue, 
which  they  think   to  be  a  predetermined  purpose.     As  we  have 
said,    the    natural    making    comes    to   have    in    itself,  what   is 
required,  not  only  for  its  existence  and  action,  but   also  in  the 
characteristic  form  of  its  species.      The  vegetable,  for  instance, 
in  making  itself,  succeeds  in  getting  its  roots  with  which  it  can 
fix  itself  strongly  to  the  ground  and  derive  the  substances  which 
are  afforded  to  it  by  the  earth  ;  and  it  comes  to  have  the  leaves 
that    flutter   in   the   air  and   in  the  sun  ;  whereby,  and  by  the 
working  of  light,  it  can  as  well   imbibe  itself  with  the  nourish- 
ment of  carbon  as   to  succeed  in  getting  the  blossom  and,  after 
it,  the  fruit,  by  which  it  can  propagate  itself."— "  The  develop- 
ment, of  which   the   egg  is  capable,  confers  on  it  much  more 
extended   and    elevated  attitudes,   that   is  to  say  not  only  the 
attitudes  which   are   analogous    to    those    of   the   vegetable  of 
nourishing  and   propagating    itself,   but    al^o  those  of  moving 
from  place  to  place  ;  of  meeting  in  ever  varied  connections  with 
the  surrounding  things,  and  of  acting  at  will  upon  them  ;   in 
short,  what  is  called  the  life  of  relation.     And  the  development, 
whereof  the  egg  is  capable,  can  confer  on  the  animal  these  more 
extended  and  more  elevated  attitudes,  because  the  same  develop- 
ment succeeds  in  producing  in  the  animal  not  only  the  appara- 
tus of  nutrition    and    propagation    analogous  to  those  of  the 
ve^^etables;  but   also  the   apparatus  for  the  above   mentioned 
functions   of   relation,    that   are   thus  proper  only  to   the  ani- 
mality  ;  i.e.,  the  apparatus  of  physiological  and  psychological 
functioning  ;    or,  in   a    word,    the   apparatus  of  Psyche.     And 
also   in  this  case,  with   such  an  exact  correspondence  between 
cause  and  effect,  that  the  teteologist   imagines  Psyche  as  having 
been   on  purpose  infused  in  view  of  the  special    purposes  pre- 
viously spoken  of;  and  as  being  an  addition  to  all  the  rest  and  a 


^  /  ^  i 


<     ■  ^ 


45 

mere  superposition  to  it ;  an  added  and  superposed  Psyche ; 
whilst  on  the  contrary  it  actually  developes,  according  to  a 
natural  necessity,  out  of  the  egg ;  just  as  it  happens  to  the 
bowels  ;  so  that,  in  the  same  manner  that  we  say  of  the  animal, 
that  it  digests,  because  its  bowels  have  developed  in  it,  we 
must  equally  say,  that  the  animal  feels  and  moves  at  will 
because  the  Psyche  has  developed  in  it." 

The  Psyche,  a  creation  being  apart  from  the  organism  and 
superposed  to  it  in  a  contingent  way  ?  Nonsense  !  The  pecu- 
liarities of  sensations  are  determinated  by  the  peculiarities 
anatomico-physiological  of  the  organs  of  sense  just  as  they  have 
turned  out  through  their  own  material  making.  The  sensations 
are  as  many,  not  one  more,  not  one  le:s,  as  are  the  stimulations 
upon  the  senses  coming  from  all  that  which  is  around  them  in 
nature  ;  from  all  that  which  has  acted  as  a  stimulus  on  them  ; 
i.e.,  our  sensations  are  the  exact  reflex  of  that  point  of  the  uni- 
versal being,  which  is  coincident  with  the  organs  of  senses ; 
and  the  combinations  of  sensations,  according  to  what  is 
required  by  the  nervous  and  cerebral  woof.  And  in  thought 
nothing  else  but  this,  combinations  of  sensations.  And  in 
them  all  their  quiddity  and  all  their  quantum.  And  then,  now 
what  else  can  rest,  besides  sensations  and  combinations  of  them, 
which  might  be  called  the  separate  substance  of  soul  or  mind  ? 
Which  might  operate  apart  independently  from  every  other 
thing  aud  in  a  manner  that  belongs  only  to  it  ? 

12.  That  ivhich  is  existing  we  said  above  in  number  8,  on 
quoting  a  passage  of  a  precedent  writing  of  mine.  That  ivhieh 
is  existing  in  a  concrete  manner ;  that  is  to  say,  the  maximum 
of  all  the  Indistincts  and  of  objectivenesses ;  that  same 
maximum  wherein  all  the  possible  Distincts  are  gathered. 
That  which,  therefore,  is  persistent  in  subsisting  and  incessant 
in  operating.  A  present  datum  whose  past  is  its  reason  and 
ratio  ;  a  present  datum  that  is  the  reason  and  ratio  of  every 
future  as  well.  That  whole,  which,  as  being  the  universal  and 
only  substratum,  is  subsisting  in  an  infinity  of  coexistences  and 
successions,  that  are  correlative  between  them  and,  in  different 
ways,  expressive  of  the  essence  of  that  same  whole  ;  as  a  sub- 
stance and  as  a  force,  that  is,  in  every  thing  and  in  every  fact, 
and  which  is  showing  itself  in  the  psychical  effects  among 
which,  and  in  a  correspondent  ratio,  emerge  the  forms  of  hetero- 
synthesis,  or  of  Matter,  and  of  autosynthesis,  or  of  Psyche. 


^    I   t 


"\ 


46 

No,  we  are  told  here,  because  the  essences,  that  are  con- 
globated in  that  hidistinct,  and  the  virtualities  included  in 
them  are  not  known ;  so  that  it  is  not  possible  to  deduce  from 
them  either  the  necessity  of  their  unity  in  That-Which-is-Exist- 
iug,  or  the  necessity  of  the  multiform  productions,  that  are  to  be 
observed  in  it.  The  reasoning  is  mathematically  exact.  We 
do  not  know  this  essence  and  we  cannot  therefore  establish,  on 
the  base  of  the  knowledge  of  it,  the  afBrmation  of  the  same 
necessity  ;  but  if  we  cannot  conclude  owing  to  the  lack  of 
that  knowledge  to  that  affirmation,  we  cannot,  as  well  how- 
ever, conclude  to  the  negation  of  it.  There  is  no  way  of 
pleading  an  exception  against  this  remark  which  is,  by  itself, 
sufficient  to  cause  the  whole  of  the  philosophy  of  contingence 
to  end  in  smoke. 

But,  nevertheless,  I  am  told,  you  do  admit  that  necessity, 
and  how  can  you  now  do  so  since  you  say  that  it  is  not  pos- 
sible ?  In  doing  so,  we  conform  to  causality  not  metaphysically, 
but  experimentally  taken,  i.e.,  taken  with  that  degree  of 
probability  that  can  be  attributed  to  do  it,  as  I  have  explained 
in  mv  former  writing  on  ''The  Three  Critical  Moments  of  the 
History  of  the  Theory  of  Knoivledge  in  Modern  Philosophy,'' 
already  quoted  above.  If  meant  in  such  a  sense,  causality  does 
not  afford  an  apodictical  certainty  ;  it,  none  the  less,  guarantees 
that  same  certainty  which  we  have  in  natural  sciences.  And 
what  can  we  want  more?  It  is  enough  that  the  naturalists  will 
not  reproach  philosophy  for  its  not  possessing  that  certainty 
which  they  can  dispose  of;  and  we  laugh  at  the  metaphysi- 
cians who,  wishing  to  have  it  greater,  end  by  having  none.  If, 
on  putting  a  dry  handkerchief  into  the  water,  we  see  it  getting 
wet,  we  say,  like  naturalists  do,  that  the  cause  of  the  effect  of 
the  wetting  lies  in  the  water  touching  the  handkerchief.  And 
this  is  enough  for  us.  We  are  not  saying,  like  the  philo- 
sophers of  contingency  do,  that  water  wets  the  linen  on  this 
occasion,  because  it  pleased  God  that  it  would  happen  so  ;  he 
being  able  to  command,  on  another  occasion,  that  water  should 
no  longer  wet  it. 

13.  About  the  impossibility  of  depending  the  psychical" 
fact  on  the  physical  one,  because,  as  it  is  said,  the  first  is  quan- 
titative and  the  second  qualitative,   it  is  needless,  in  order  to 


I 


>  n'f 


} 


♦  '  f 


47 

show  the  inaptitude  of  this  reason,  to  speak  on  any  longer  after 
what  has  been  remarked  above  in  Number  5. 

We  will  stop  a  while,  instead,  on  the  other  two  reasons 
produced  by  our  opposers.  The  reason  of  the  indifference  of  the 
physical  energy  opposite  to  the  specific  psychical  diversities  ; 
and  the  reason  of  the  littleness  of  the  material  elements  with 
respect  to  the  immenseh  numerous  conscious  products. 

And  we  will  notice  first,  that  the  Idealists,  by  opposing 

here  the  psychical  to  the  physical  energy,  not  only  come  again 

to  make  use  of  the  old  metaphysical    conception,  but  also  to 

conceal  what  they  have  not  the  courage  to  declare  clearly,  i.e., 

the  dualism  of  the  metaphysical  substance  of  the  soul  on  one 

\  side,  and  of  the  metaphysical  substance  of  the  matter  on  the 

i  other.     By  which  we  come  to  justify  what  we  were  saying  at 

'the  beginning,  i.e.,  that  our  opponents  are  offering  as  being  the 

•last  result  of  science,  that  which,  after  all  analysis,  and  though 

j  studiously  concealed,  is  nothing  but  the  very  old  metaphysical 

spiritualism  itself. 

And,  coming  back  to  the  two  above  mentioned  reasonings : 
As  to  the  first,  in  order  to  show  that  it  has  no  worth  at  all,  it 
will  suffice  to  remark  that  if  it  forms  an  efficacious  argumenta- 
/'tion  against  materialism  (for  this  doctrine  identifies  the  psychical 
with  the  physical  phenomenon)  it  is  not  efficacious  in  respect 
to  Positivism  ;  which  in  the  physical  phenomenon  correlative 
to  the  psychical  one,  does  not  see  anything  but  the  indication 
given  by  the  external  sense  of  the  working  reality  ;  and  being 
the  external  sense  transcendental,  in  respect  to  the  internal  one, 
the  former  cannot  coincide  with  the  speciality  of  the  latter. 

Besides  that,  we  can  here  notice  that  the  same  physical 
energy  is  already  a  multiplicity  of  energies  which  are  differen- 
tiating;  since  the  physicist,  for  instance,  distinguishes  among 
gravity,  heat,  light,  electricity,  magnetism  ;  the  chemist,  among 
the  specific  properties  of  the  various  substances  ;  and,  likewise, 
the  mineralogist  among  the  different  crystalline  forms  ;  and  the 
physiologist  among  the  various  products  yielded  by  plants 
and  animals. 

Should  it  be  said  that,  after  all,  these  diversities  of  energy 
may  be  imagined  as  being  nothing  but  differentiated  rhythms 
of  the  motion  itself,  to  this  we  might  again  oppose  that  an 


I 


S*      i* 


48 


49 


analogous  reduction  may  be  effectuated  also  with  respect  to 
the  diversities  of  psychical  forms  ;  which,  too,  can  be  imagined 
as  being  nothing  but  differentiated  rhythms  of  the  simple  pro- 
toestematical  minimi,  as  I  have  demonstrated  in  several  pas- 
sages of  my  writings  C). 

Of  this  infinite  multiplication  of  the  causative  pheno- 
menality  through  the  diversifying  of  the  rhythm  of  similar 
elements,  an  account  is  also  to  be  kept,  in  order  to  answer  the 
second  of  the  two  above  mentioned  reasons.  Infinite,  are  as 
well  the  compounding  minimi,  as  the  rhythms  resulting  in  the 
psychical  phenomenism  ;  but  infinite  are,  likewise,  the  com- 
pounding minimi  and  the  resulting  rhythms  of  the  physical 
phenomenism.  Who  does  not  know  of  the  endless  number, 
pointed  out  by  the  naturalist,  of  the  prime  elements  and  of  the 
moments  of  their  action  and  of  the  forms  of  things  and  acts 
which  can  be  gained  through  their  various   rhythmicalnesses  ? 

It  is,  then,  a  curious  thing  that  the  difficulty  regarding  the 
above  two  mentioned  reasons  be,  by  our  opponents,  used  not  in 
view  of  the  simple  sensations,  but  above  all  of  the  logical 
schemes  and  of  the  affective  forms  as  well ;  while  the  disformity 
should  be  absolute,  neither  more  nor  less,  as  well  for  the  former 
as  for  the  latter.  The  thing  is,  that  our  opponents  did  not 
reach  the  doctrine,  yet  so  certain  and  sure,  according  to  which 
the  logical  schemes  are  nothing  but  the  simple  rhythms  of  the 
same  sensations  ;  and  sentiment,  afar  from  not  being  a  sensation, 
is  but  an  onlv  thing  with  it,  as  we  have  explained  above.  All 
of  which  comes  to  show  again,  that  our  opponents,  as  we  have 
already  noticed,  while  they  are  professing  to  think  that  senti- 
ment is  always  accompanied  by  sensation,  nevertheless  they 
end  by  making,  of  the  one  and  the  other,  two  quite  different 
functions. 

And  how  can  we  think  differently,  since,  between  knowledge, 
sentiment  and  will,  they  explicitly  put  an  irreducible  fundamen- 
tal difference,  while,  on  the  contrary,  the  fact  is  that  the  repre- 
sentation caused  by  the  occurred  integrations,  is  found  to  be 
differently  referring  in  the  mental  complexus ;  so  that  there  is 
no  way  of  observing  in  it  a  diversity  of  essence,  but  simply  a 
diversity  of  referment  ? 


^  It 


(1)  Especially  Phil.  Works,  Vol.   I.  423-429;  and  Vol.  VII.,  34,  62,  80,  401, 
508,  etc. 


Above,    in   number  5,  w^  spoke   about   this   subject   with 
regard  to  the  distinction  between  representation  and  sentiment 
in  general.     We  will  here  talk  again  about  it  in  regard  to  Will. 
"The  reiterated  observation  of  the  fact  that  the  volitional  sen- 
sation is  followed  by  the  acts   relative  to   it,  is  the  cause  by 
which  the  same  sensation  may  be  thought  as  being  in  casual 
relation  to  the  same  acts,  and  by  which  it  may  be  consequently 
thought  that  the  volitional  sensation  had  a  causative  efficacy 
which  does  not,  instead,  belong  at  all   to  it,  and  is  only  con- 
nected with  it  by  reason  of  the  above  mentioned  association. 
(^)  In  the  consciousness  of  human   will   there  are  three  different 
elements  to  be  discriminated.     They  are  :  the  speciality  of  the 
sentiment  experienced  during  the  act  of  willing  ;  the  idea  of  the 
willing  Self  ;  and  the  idea  of  the  operative  efficacy  of  volition. 
Now,   it  is  easy  to   see,  that  what  is  essential    in    volition   is 
only  the  first  element,  i.e.,  the  specific  sensation,  which  arises  in 
the  region  of  consciousness  on  account  of  what  is  common  to  all 
sensations,  the  excitement  of  the  sensitive  organ.     The  other  two 
elements   are  a  pure   effect  of   mental    association.     They  are 
found  to  be  in  consciousness  only  after  the  same  association  has 
taken  its  place  in   it  never  before,  and  never  when   the  same 
association  does  not  succeed  in  forming  itself  (*).     Elsewhere  (^) 
I  explain  the  matter  by  an  example,  whicli  I  think  it  convenient 
to  report  here.     "  A  pole  is  a  pole,  and  nothing  but  a  pole ;  but 
if  I  plant   it  in  a  certain  spot  to  show  the  way  that  is  to  be 
followed,  I  invest  it,  on  the  circumstances  of  this  case,  with  the 
character  of  indicator.     If  I  make  use  of  it  to  bear  a  weight,  I 
invest  it  with  the  character  of  bearer.     If  I  put  it  across  a  lane, 
I  invest  it  with  the  character  of  barrier.     If  I  make  use  of  it  to 
beat  walnuts  down  from  their  tree,  I  invest  it  with  the  character 
of  beater.     If  I  make  it  serve  to  hold  a  bundle  on  my  shoulder,  I 
invest  it  with  the  character  of  holder.''' 

14.  Let  us  come  now,  at  last,  to  that  final  difficulty 
which  has  been  brought  forward  of  the  causation  by  reason  of 
a  purpose  ;  causation  which  be  therefore  free  in  Psyche,  and 
hence  quite  different  from  the  mechanical  one  of  the  mechanicity 
which  therefore  is  said  to  be  necessitated. 

O  I.e.  Chap.  XXIII. 

O  I.e.,  Chap.  XXVIII. 

(3)  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  IX.,  pp.  265,  266. 


«    N   i- 


i. 


, « 


50 


51 


When  the  necessary  connection  between  physical  and 
psychical  phenomism  is  demonstrated,  and  when  the  absolute 
determinism  for  materiality  is  admitted,  the  necessary  con- 
sequence is  that  determinism  must  be  admitted  also  in  respect 
to  the  psychical  phenomenism. 

The  reason  to  support  the  psychical  indeterminism.  which  is 
grounded  on  the  variety,  multiplicity,  and  unforeseeableness  of 
its  products  were  it  of  worth,  would  also  be  so  with  regard  to 
the  physical  phenomenism  wherein,  too  (and  not,  to  be  sure,  in 
a  less  proportion),  the  same  variety,  multiplicity,  and  unforesee- 
ableness is  to  be  realised.  When,  where,  how  much,  how  will 
it  rain  on  a  certain  country,  and  with  what  number  and  weight 
and  shape  of  water  drops  ?  Although  the  cause  of  each  one  of 
these  pliysical  particularities  be  not  apppintable,  determinism 
is  however,  nevertheless,  not  to  be  excluded.  And  why  are  they 
not  willing  to  deduce  it  in  the  •  analogous  case  of  Psyche? 
Here,  too,  when  you  succeed  in  distinguishing  the  same  cause, 
the  somatic  determinant  of  the  phenomenoa  is  always  found  to 
exist.  And  in  how  many  ways,  were  this  one  excluded,  deter- 
minism mav  be  attested.  \'arietv,  ves  ;  but  alwavs  with  the 
character  of  the  same  species  of  acts  and  of  the  same  genus  of 
conditions  as  of  age,  of  etnography,  of  the  historical  period,  of  the 
medium,  wherein  the  animal  lives,  of  the  physiological  condition 
through  whose  different  genera  we  get  the  relative  genera  of 
psychical  manifestations,  and  so  on.  And  determinism  may  be 
much  better  attested  by  considering  that  in  every  psychical 
production  you  can  never  find  anything  else  but  a  plot  of 
sensitive  elements  that  have  been  all  of  them  absolutely  deter- 
mined by  the  anatomical  ratio  of  those  organs  through  which 
we  got  them  ;  in  such  a  way  that  the  different  conformation  of 
the  organs  of  senses  of  the  different  animals  bears  different 
psychical  attitudes,  in  the  same  way  that  the  presence  of  this  or 
of  that  element  in  a  certain  substance  gives  it  ether  such  or  such 
other  properties. 

The  fact  of  the  sentiment  of  the  independence  of  will 
from  any  determinative  precedence,  does  not  suffice  to  establish 
psychical  indeterminism.     As  I  once  wrote  (^)  :  "  Consciousness 

(1)  In  the  book  on  The  Ethic  of  Positivists  (Phil.  Works,  Vol.  III.),  Book  I., 
Part  II.,  Chap.  IV.,  No.  2. 


% 


■    ' 


shows  me  the  only  fact  of  deliberation  of  will,  and  does  not 
show  me  any  precedent  other  fact  that  be  the  cause  of  the  same 
volition,  i.e.,  consciousness  does  not  let  me  know  that  Will 
depends  on  something  that  determines  it.  It  does  not  do  so. 
But,  however,  it  does  not  equally  teach  me  that  volition  has  not 
such  a  relation  of  dependence,  while  to  know  this  is  just  what 
should  be  exactly  necessary  in  order  that  the  argument  might 
have  a  value.  With  our  hand  we  throw  a  stone  ;  this  stone 
makes  a  curve  moving  in  the  air ;  and  this  is  the  effect  of  the 
impulse  received  from  my  hand.  Let  us  now  suppose  the  stone 
to  be  supplied  with  the  consciousness  of  itself,  but  only  within 
the  time  during  which  (and  not  before)  it  is  moving  in  the  air. 
The  stone  would  believe  that  it  moves  bv  itself,  because  it  is 
not  aware  of  the  precedent  fact  of  the  received  impulse.  But  it 
would  be  mistaken." 

And  I  do  not  dwell  any  longer  upon  this  subject,  leaving  it  to 
what  I  wrote  many  other  times  on  it  and,  above  all,  in  my  recent 
writing  under  the  title  "  Reflected  Act  and  Voluntary  Act  "  (^). 
In  this  writing,  where  I  demonstrate  also  the  fallaciousness  of 
the  doctrine  whereof  our  opponents  are  so  fond,  the  doctrine  of 
teleologism  as  being  characteristic  of  the  psychical  functioning 
and  the  surer  index  of  its  liberty  by  remarking  that  in  such  a 
functioning  nothing  else  happens,  but  what  takes  place  in  the 
physical  phenomenism  too,  and  according  to  the  same  law  of 
the  heterogeneity  of  purposes,  as  it  is  called  erroneously,  con- 
sidered, as  we  have  already  said,  as  being  exclusive  of  the 
psychological  working.  I  leave  all  this  to  that  writing,  it  being 
useless  to  insist  upon  a  subject  that  has  been  there  already 
sufficiently  illustrated. 


Now  we  can,  therefore,  conclude  that  the  charge  set 
against  Positivism  by  our  opponents,  that  is  to  say,  that  in  it 
there  is  found  to  be  the  fundamental  fault  of  the  subject  appearing 
as  being  an  object,  is  entirely  false. 

Not  even  the  shadow  of  such  a  fault,  and  the  remarks 
introduced  by  them  to  support  such  a  prejudicial  question  are 
either   falsely   asserted   or   are   only   mistakes  of  their  system, 

0)  Phil.  Works,  Vol.  X.,  p.  19  and  foil. 


.J 


i 


^ 


52 

which  is  solid  only  in  that  part  they  have  borrowed  from 
Positivism,  and  entirely  vain  in  those  parts  in  which  they 
philosophise  for  their  own  account,  ingenuously  believing  to 
substitute  their  own  theories  for  those  of  Positivism,  and  to 
perform  the  exequies  of  it.  The  opportunity  could  not  be 
better  for  reminding  the  terzina  of  the  Purgatorio. 

The  souls  who  had  observed, 

By  my  breathing,  that  I  was  yet  alive, 

Marvelling,  grew  pale. 

Canto,  IIo,  67  V. 

ROBERT   ARDIGO. 


Padua,  the  28th  January,  1908,  on  the 
author's  eightieth  birthday. 


Th«  bod.  U  ie  tw^^^trom^b*,^; 

^^i  below,  and  «  "^/^^SSS" 
before  that  time  a  fine  of  five  cent*  a  aax. 


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